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Cyrano de Bergerac. After an authentic portrait.

The Gascon Edition. .^'^ f)

THE COMPLETE WORKS" .,;- f"^^

THEOPHILE GAUTIER

49828

'translated and Edited by
PROFESSOR S. C. De SUMICHRAST

Department of French, Harvard University.

Volume II.

THE GROTESQUES

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

2a}s

London :
THE ATHEN/EUM PRESS

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Contents

Introduction Page 3

FRAN901S Villon .
Theophile de Viau
Saint-Amant .
Cyrano de Bergerac
George de Scudery
Paul Scarron .

6i
127
163
203
267

The Grotesques

Introduction

THE articles contained in this volume orig-
inally appeared in the review La France
litteraire^ of which Charles Malo was the
editor. It was in December, 1833, ^^^^
Gautier signed a contract with Malo to furnish him
with twelve articles which should together form a
complete account of the old French poets. The title
agreed upon — Exhumations litt'eraires — indicates that
the authors to be treated of were every one of them
forgotten. Eleven years later the essays were collected
and republished in book form, the last one, that on
Paul Scarron, having but just before made its appear-
ance in the pages of the Revue des Deux Mondes.
This first edition was in two volumes octavo, and
contained twelve papers ; the Charpentier edition con-
tains ten only. Of these the most characteristic have
been translated here.

The title selected in the beginning was not adhered
to when the work appeared in book form, being

THE GROTESQUES

changed to Les Grotesques^ which it has ever since
retained. It is a striking title, but it does not ac-
curately describe the contents of. the volume, or even
the majority of the authors treated of by the critic ;
for no student of literature nowadays would dream of
calling that great poet, Villon, a grotesque ; and
Theophile de Viau, while infinitely less great than
Villon, is also a writer of mark, as indeed Gautier
himself has been careful to point out. Cyrano de
Bergerac is absurd and extravagant very often, but
not absolutely grotesque in the true sense of the word.
To have called him burlesque and to have applied
the same epithet to Scarron and Scudery would have
been justifiable, but the expression " burlesque " did
not convey any peculiar meaning in 1833, while
" grotesque " did, and awakened recollections, still
very vivid, of the most radical portions of the Roman-
ticist profession of faith.

It was in 1827 that Victor Hugo — already famous
and already recognised as the head of the new school
that was merrily and noisily attacking the strongholds
in which the Classicists were intrenched — published
his drama " Cromwell." The play itself could not
be performed, owing to its great length, apart from a

I NTRODUCTIQN

certain lack of appropriateness to other exigencies of
the stage. But the " Preface" eclipsed the play, and
drew to itself the attention of both literary parties
then contending for supremacy in France. It was a
manifesto, — a bold declaration of principles and aims,
written in a vigorous, trenchant style, sparing none of
the idols of the Classicists, and setting up, with much
pomp, splendour, and acclamation, new gods to be
worshipped.

The most original part of the "Preface" was that
bearing upon the " grotesque " and its legitimate place
in art. "In modern thought," said Victor Hugo,
"the grotesque plays an all-important part. It is
omnipresent : on the one hand it gives birth to deform-
ity and repulsiveness, on the other to comicality and
buffoonery. It weaves innumerable novel supersti-
tions around religion ; countless picturesque inventions
around poesy. The grotesque it is which scatters
lavishly in air, water, earth, and fire the myriads of
intermediary beings which live in the popular tradi-
tions of the Middle Ages; which sends whirling
through the darkness the terrifying dance of the
witches' sabbath, which provides Satan with horns,
cloven hoofs, and bats' wings." And, after enthusias-

THE GROTESQUES

tically dwelling upon the aesthetic and literary value of
the grotesque in art, upon the absolute necessity which
exists for never omitting it from a picture intended
to represent life in its real aspect, Hugo continues :
" In the new poetry, while the soul, penetrated by
Christian morality, shall be represented by the sublime,
the grotesque shall represent the animal side of man.
The former, freed from all impure alloy, shall possess
charm, grace, beauty j for it must be capable one day
of creating Juliet, Desdemona, Ophelia. The other
shall take to itself the ridiculous, the weak, the ugly.
In the dividing up of humanity and creation, its share
shall be passions, vices, crimes ; it shall be lust,
servility, gluttony, avarice, treachery, quarrelsomeness,
and hypocrisy ; it shall be, in turns, lago, TartufFe,
Basile ; Polonius, Harpagon, Bartholo ; FalstafF, Scapin,
Figaro. There is but one standard of beauty ; there
are innumerable forms of ugliness." And again :
" From art it passes into manners ; and while on the
one hand it makes the masses applaud the clown in
the play, on the other hand it later presents kings
with court-jesters ; in the very age of etiquette, it ex-
hibits Scarron by the side of the couch of Louis XIV."
Gautier fairly worshipped Hugo, and the " Preface "

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INTRODUCTION

had very deeply impressed him, as more than one
passage in >' The Grotesques " abundantly proves.
These forgotten poets, then, appealed to him, partly
on account of the effects which might be drawn from
their works and which went to support the theory
Hugo had developed, partly on account of their seem-
ing to have been harshly and even unjustly dealt with
by the great critic of the seventeenth century, Boileau ;
whose judgments had remained practically unquestioned
until that time. Without being, perhaps, as prej-
udiced as his comrades in Romanticism, Gautier,
nevertheless, largely shared the prevailing abhorrence
of the autocrat of Parnassus, and was ready enough
to exalt the forgotten poets at the expense of the
critic and the school he represents so worthily and
with such dignity.

But Gautier, even as a young writer and an enthu-
siastic Romanticist, had a literary conscience, was
possessed of literary taste, and was naturally inclined
to tell the truth without allowing himself to be swayed
consciously by prejudice or antipathy. The result is
that his work confirms, on the whole, the verdict of
Boileau ; and that the lack of taste, which is the
most conspicuous reason of the forgetfulness which

THE GROTESQUES

has fallen to the lot of these Grotesques, the absurdity
and the extravagance of which they are frequently
guilty, made him feel that any attempt to put them
on a high pedestal must be fraught with failure. The
one exception to this is, of course, Villon, whom the
unanimous opinion of the age ranks with the other
great poets of France.

But if Gautier could not and did not seek to wholly
reverse the judgments of Boileau, he succeeded in
making the readers of his own and of succeeding
generations appreciate in these minor poets many a
forgotten beauty, and in giving such vivid reproduc-
tions of the men and their times that every one,
Cyrano de Bergerac, Saint-Amant, Scarron, and the
others actually live in his pages. He has written
criticisms keen, bright, interesting ; full of brilliant
passages, of evocations of bygone times, of restoration
of forgotten modes of thought ; he has made intel-
ligible the fame which most of these men enjoyed in
their day, — and all this without once wearying the
reader, but, on the contrary, maintaining his interest
and exciting his curiosity.

As his first attempt in literary criticism, "The
Grotesques " would have a value of its own, but

r^fx R O D U C T 1 O N

beyond the curiosity which attaches to the debut of a
great writef in a new field, the studies of Gautier
have permanent and well recognised worth. At a
time when Villon was not known as he deserved to be,
the chapter on this poet did much to attract attention
to him and to the deeply personal and pathetic character
of a large part of his verse. Theophile de Viau was
judged solely on the ridiculous couplet cited, and
justly so, as an example of phenomenal bad taste, but
few, if any, had the least idea that he was nevertheless
a poet of great parts and of, at times, fine inspiration.
That there was anything in Saint-Amant besides praise
of gross feeding and hard drinking did not occur to
the average reader, while Cyrano de Bergerac, to
whom a modern dramatist owes his fame, was merely
a big-nosed swashbuckler.

Gautier cleared up a number of misconceptions,
swept away some errors, and gave a clearer view of a
period in which, though it was not graced by poetic
genius, there were many writers of merit and worth.
He has not unsuccessfully essayed to show the causes
of the admiration felt for these men ; an admiration
due to tastes differing from ours, to habits much unlike
ours, to a state of society and a condition of manners

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THE GROTESQUES

which we can but with difficulty comprehend at the
present day. And withal he had not the least intention
— indeed, he expressly declares it, — to propose these
authors as models to be followed by his generation.
They were interesting, instructive, curious, pleasant
to read, but not modern. Presenting, no doubt, many
a feature which made the Romanticists — then in
the zenith of their reputation and their power — akin
to them in many respects, yet they did not seem
to the critic worth imitating. The exquisite artistic
sense which was so rapidly maturing in him, and which
had dictated so many of the beautiful pages in his
early and daring romance, the rich poetic feeling which
was later to give the world " Enamels and Cameos,"
could not possibly be satisfied with the compositions
of writers who, if they possessed pearls, did not know
how to turn them to account, who, if they hit upon a
dramatic situation, were incapable of making adequate
use of it.

Gautler pointed out — what is of common knowl-
edge now — that Moliere borrowed one of his most
famous scenes from fighting Cyrano, but the very
extract which he gives suffices, without reading the
deadly dull " Tricked Pedant," to show the utter

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"^INTRODUCTION

inferiority of de Bergerac, the would-be dramatist, to
Moliere, thd prince of comic writers. If he recalls de
Vigny when speaking of Saint-Amant, it is not that
he believes the latter equals the former as a poet, but
merely to show how ideas, unworked or poorly wrought
out by his " Grotesques," have reappeared, splendid
and luminous, in the verse of men of genius.

Gautier is not a Sainte-Beuve, he does not equal
the great critic of the nineteenth century, but he un-
questionably writes very admirable criticisms and very
able studies of writers and their works, in a style
which Sainte-Beuve might have envied, so full of life,
fire, colour, and poetry is it. To read Gautier is to
enjoy a rich intellectual treat in which the senses
themselves have a part.

Francois Villon

The Grotes^es

FRANgOIS VILLON

THE study of second-rate poets is both
delightful and interesting, because, first,
as they are less known and read, there
are more novelties to be found In them ;
and next, because there is not a ready-made judgment
for every striking passage. One has not to go into
conventional ecstasies, to be convulsed, or to start
with delight at certain places, as is indispensable with
poets who have become classics.

The reading of these lesser poets is unquestionably
somewhat more recreative than is that of acknowl-
edged celebrities, for it is in these second-rate poets
— I think I may affirm this without indulging in a
paradox — that the greatest originality and eccentricity
are to be met with. Indeed, that is why they are
second-rate. To be a great poet, at least In the
ordinary acceptation of the words, a man must address

THE GROTESQUES

the masses and influence them. It is only general

ideas which make an impression upon the crowd.

Ever)' one likes to come accross his own thoughts in

the poet's song. This explains why the stage is so

hostile to the eccentricities of fancy. The most

belauded passages of poets are usually commonplace.

Ten lines by Byron upon love, or the short duration

of life, or any other equally stale subject, will gain

more admirers than the most weird visions of Jean

Paul or of Hoffman. The reason is that many people

have been or are in love, that many more are afraid

to die, and that there are very few who have seen pass,

even in their dreams, the fantastic silhouettes of the

German story-tellers.

Among the second-rate poets one finds everything

that the aristocrats of the Ark have disdained to make

use of, — the grotesque, the fantastic, the trivial, the

ignoble, the daring sally, the newly coined word, the

popular proverb, the pompous metaphor; in a word,

bad taste in its entirety, with its lucky hits, with its

plated ware which might be gold, with its bits of

glass which might be diamonds. Pearls are scarcely

found elsewhere than in a dunghill, as witness Ennius.

For myself, I prefer the pearls of the old Roman to
—

FRANCOIS VILLON

all the gold of Virgil. It takes a very great heap
of gold to malce the worth of a small handful of
pearls.

I take singular pleasure in unearthing a fine line
from the work of a despised poet. It seems to me
that his unhappy shade must rejoice and be consoled
at seeing his thought understood at last. I rehabili-
tate him, I do him justice; and if at times my praise
of some obscure poet appears exaggerated to certain
of my readers, let them remember that I praise these
writers in order to make up for all those who have
insulted them beyond reason, and that undeserved
contempt provokes and justifies excessive panegyrics.
When reading one of these poets — reputed poor,
thanks to the judgment of a college pedant — one
comes at every step upon picturesque accidents which
cause a pleasant surprise. It is just as if, when trav-
elling along a road which one has been told is white
with sunshine and dust, one met here and there beauti-
ful green trees, hedges full of flowers and songbirds,
running waters, and perfumed breezes. All these
things would seem the more beautiful because the
less expected. A silver coin picked up in the street
gives greater pleasure than a gold piece in a drawer.

THE GROTESQUES

Saint-Amand, Theophile, Du Bartas are full of such
surprises. Their brilliant thoughts stand out more vig-
orously than those of other and more perfect poets,
no doubt, because of the inferiority of the rest of the
work ; just as the night sky causes the stars, invisible
at noon, to twinkle brightly.

Master Francois Villon, the author of " The Lesser
Testament " and " The Great Testament," is — in
spite of Etienne Pasquier, Antoine du Verdier, and
some other pedants, in spite of the forgetfulness, or
rather the desuetude, into which he has fallen because
of his obsolete language and the obscurity of his allu-
sions— the member of that numerous family in whose
work one comes upon the greatest number of lucky
finds of this sort ; and yet, strange to tell, the poor
scholar Villon is scarce known save through the two
rather ridiculous verses of Boileau Despreaux, —

" Villon first managed, in these uncouth ages,

To clear up the muddled art of our old romancers."

It is likely that Boileau had not the faintest idea of
what Villon was, and had not read a single line of his.
Certainly the ascetic poet of His Most Christian
Majesty would not have found these verses to his
taste, he whose ears were so jansenistically alarmed

FRANCOIS VI LLON

at the sound of the cynical rimes of that bold poet
Mathurin Regriier.

Villon, who, according to Boileau, cleared up the
muddled art of our old romancers, did not write a
single romance or anything resembling one. He is
a satirical soul, a philosopher-poet, a different vein
of whom Marot and Regnier have each exploited,
but he is assuredly not a romancer. This distich,
and two or three others of about the same value,
repeated imperturbably, have become axioms, and it
is by them that many persons, otherwise well in-
formed, judge our ancient literature.

Since the publication of Boileau's " Art of Poetry,"
criticism has progressed a good deal. We are not so
easily satisfied, and we do not settle an author's place
by means of a line formulated as a proverb ; but
criticism commits, in our opinion, the great mistake
of attaching itself only to established reputations which
no one attacks. It takes account of the princes of
poetry only, and troubles very little about the popular
and the middle-class writers. It is like historians,
who fancy they have written the history of a nation,
when they have compiled the life of a prince. Assur-
edly Master de Scudery has as large a place in the age

^ db db ^ db 4: :!: 4: 4: ^ 4: 4r:fc :lr ^ 4: d; ti; * 4: * :!: :!: ^

THE GROTESQUES

of Richelieu as good Pierre Corneille. His swash-
buckler style is bv no means out of place by the side
of the Castilian arts and chivalric fashions of the
sublime author of " The Cid." The surest way
to become acquainted with an epoch is to study its
portraits and characters. Corneille is the portrait,
Scudery the character. No one, that I am aware
of, has written Scudery's biography or analysed his
works.

But what I have just said about Scudery in no wise
applies to Francois Villon. Villon was the greatest
poet of his time ; and now, after the lapse of so many
years, after so many changes in manners and in style,
through the old words, through the irregularly scanned
verses, through the barbarous turns, the poet shines as
the sun through the clouds, like an old painting from
which the varnish has been removed.

Almost alone among all the Gothic writers Villon
has any ideas. Everything is not sacrificed in his
work to the exigencies of a literary form which has
been purposely made difficult. He is free from those
eternal descriptions of spring which flourish in bal-
lads and fabliaux, nor does his verse consist merely
of complaints of the cruelty of some fair lady who

F R A X g O I S \^ I L L O N

refuses to grant the favour of love. His is a new,

strong, simple ^poetry, a good-natured muse which

does not look prudish when a coarse word is spoken;

which goes to the wine-shop and even elsewhere, and

would not scruple to put your purse in its pocket,

— for I am bound to confess it, Villon was a past

master in the art of burglary, and spoke slang at least

as well as French. Our poet was a jovial chap:

" Born to be hanged, as every one could see,
But, barring that, the best of fellows he."

His libertine, vagabond life necessarily told upon his
talent, and gave it a peculiar cast ; he has indeed a
distinct, unmistakable colour which distinguishes him
from other poets, and he deserved that Regnier should
imitate him in his magnificent satire on the brothel.
The one mark which Villon has left in histor}' is a
decree by which he was condemned to be hanged with
five or six good fellows of his kind. Verv lucky
was it for him that he did not suffer from talkative-
ness, as he himself savs. He appealed from the
sentence of the Chatelet Court to the High Court
of Parliament, and the penalty was commuted into
banishment pure and simple. He withdrew, so it
is claimed, —

THE GROTESQUES

" To Saint-Generou,
Near Saint-Julian-des-Vouentes,
In the marshes of Bretagne or Poictou,"

where are to be found " handsome and pleasant
wenches," — an indispensable matter for a damned
libertine like Villon. He led at Saint-Generou the
same life as at Ruel and Paris, the ordinary scenes of
his exploits. Any other man, after having shaved the
gibbet so closely, would have mended his ways, but
apparently Villon was incorrigible, for we find that
Louis XI, on his return from Flanders, caused him, by
express favour, to be released from the prison of
Meung, wherein Bishop Thibault d'Aussigny had him
immured for having robbed a sacristy. He had made
up his mind to die, and had composed the following
axiomatic epitaph in single rimes : —

" A Frenchman I, which grieves me sore, born in Paris, near
Pontoise. And now a rope a fathom long shall teach my neck
my buttocks' weight."

It will be seen that he cared little enough whether
or not he was made into an earring for Mistress Gibbet.
He had even rimed a beautiful ballad, in which he rep-
resents himself by anticipation as having been actually
hanged with five or six of his band : —

FRANgOIS VILLON

" SoddenM by rains and washed are we j
Blackfen'd and dried by sun's hot rays.
Our eyes pick'd out by pie and crow
And pluck'd each hair of head and brow.
Never for a moment still are we :
Hither and thither, with change of wind.
Driven about sans rest or stay ;
No thimble dinted as peck'd are we.
Brethren, your jeers repress, we pray.
And ; God assoil ye, rather say."

He speaks like a connoisseur j he knows the gallows
thoroughly ; and the victim thereon, in all its aspects,
profile, and perspective, is singularly familiar to him.
Colin de Cayeux and Rene de Montigny, his com-
rades, had been stupid enough to come to their death
in their boots, as may be seen In one of the ballads of
the " Jargon," and he himself could scarcely expect to
die in his bed. I fancy I can see him, thin, pale,
ragged, turning around the scafFoId as the point to
which his life must come, and piteously contemplating
his good friends, who were figuring a capital I and
sticking their tongues out merely because they had
gone to have some fun at Ruel. Notice the term, the
euphuism of it, — have some fun! What the devil
did those people do when they were seriously at work
since they were presented with a hemp necktie simply

THE GROTESQUES

for having had some fun ? The fun of Villon was
swindling, stealing, gorging in well-famed places and
in others, fighting with the watch and the citizens, —
nothing less could be fun for such a man. And yet
in his verse he sets himself up as a counsellor of
morals.

" To you I speak, comrades in debauch —
Disease of souls and of the body joy —
Keep you safe from the cursed tan
That turns men black when they are dead,"

says he, after an admirable homily addressed by him to
all debauchees, thieves, and other nice people. Pray
note, I beg you, that expression, the cursed tan that
turns men black when they are dead. It is the result
of close observation, and shows that the author is thor-
oughly up in the subject of which he treats. Besides,
he puts it very politelv. He does not say brutally,
" Look out and don't get hanged ; " he has too much
self-respect for that. The piece which precedes these
verses is entitled, " A Ballad of Good Doctrine for
Those of Evil Life." We cannot resist the pleasure
of transcribing it.

" Indulgence peddler, whether you be,
Loader of dice, or gambler free.
Or counterfeit coiner, sure you'll be

FRANgOIS VILLON

Scalded as they in water hot.
Perjured traitors, void of faith ;
Whether you rob, plunder, or steal.

To whom, think you, goes the profit ?

To taverns and wenches, every whit.

«' Rime and rail, hustle and fight,

With your vicious like be day and night,

Fool that you are, hypocrite and shameless ;

Be clown and wizard, play the flute.

Perform in cities and eke in towns

Farce, or show, or moralities :

Win, if you will, at table, glic, and bowls —

Ever 'twill go — hear me tell it —

To taverns and girls, every bit.

" Keep far away from filth so vile :

Till the ground, the fields and meadows mow ;
Tend and groom or horse or mule.
If never you have been to school :
Enough shall you have if you take to these.
But if hemp you crush and hemp you draw.
All your labour shall but benefit
The girls and the taverns, every whit.

ENVOI

" Hose and doublets full of points.
Gowns and garments of every kind,
Ere you do worse, carry them all
To taverns and wenches, one and all."

It will be seen that if he sins, it is not for want of
knowing what is right, — but what would you have.''

THE GROTESQUES

<*. . . In deep poverty
(So says the popular saw)
Look not for too much loyalty.

Necessity leads to evil life

As wolf by hunger Is driven from woods."

Villon does not fail, every time the opportunity
occurs, to return to this thought, and even amid all
the lamentations over his wretchedness and the regrets
he expresses that he has not been virtuous, he fully
justifies these two verses of Mathurin, —

"... Naught so punishes
A vicious man as vice itself."

Besides, it would seem that poverty was an heredi-
tary failing in his family.

*• Poor have I been from my youth up j
Lonely my birth and poor :
Little wealth my sire did own,
And his sire too, Horatius hight.
For poverty has tracked and haunted us.
On graves of my forbears every one
(May God to Himself their souls uptake !)
Never a crown or sceptre shows."

He lost his father early, and it was his uncle who
brought him up, and who treated him with all possible
tenderness.

FRANgOIS VILLON

"... My more than father.

Master Guillaumc de Villon,

More gentle to me than any mother."

Certainly, Villon was not born to be a cut-purse ;
he had a fine soul, accessible to all good sentiments.
Every time he speaks of his mother it is in a strain of
exquisite sensibility.

"... My poor mother
Who through me bitter pain did know,
God wots, and many a sad hour here below.*'

He maintained three young orphans : —

«* Also, by pity moved, I leave
To three little chaps that naked be,
Named in this my present scroll.
The better known thus they may be —
Poor little orphans, of all bereft.
And naked as earthworm is :
I order that they be so furnished
That this winter through at least they live."

These three orphans were Colin Laurens, Girard
Gosseyn, and Jehan Marceaux. He mentions them
several times.

" Upon this trip of mine I 've learned
That these three poor orphans mine
Have grown and are gaining age.

THE GROTESQUES

Now will I that to school they go.
Where ? To Master Peter Richer' s ;
For them Donatus is too hard, I trow.

My long tabard in two I cut,
And will that half thereof be sold,
And therewithal to buy them cates,
For youth a sweet tooth ever has."

He counsels them to work, —

'* Evil, for the strong, is that sweet sleep
That leads the young to ease in youth j
So that at last they wake and work, in truth,
When they should rest as age doth creep."

Villon does not indulge too much in fine maxims.
" Do what I say, not what I do." If he had been
placed in other circumstances, and had used for good all
the wit and all the genius which he spent for ill, there
is no doubt that he would have left in history other
traces than those of the decree condemning him, in
due legal form, to be hanged high and close, like the
wicked rascal that he was ; but mayhap we should
have lost the poet if we had gained the honest man.
Good poets are rarer than honest people even, although
these are not very common.

Notwithstanding the lack of documents, it is easy to
write a very detailed life of Villon. He is an egotist

FRANCOIS VILLON

poet, and / and me recur very frequently in his verse.
He speaks of himself, confesses his sins with charming
artlessness, looks back upon his life, takes pleasure in
the remembrances of his youth and of the good times
he has had. He talks about death, about virtue, about
everything ; for the poor scholar invented, under
Louis XI, the discursive poetic form in which Byron
wrote his " Don Juan." Like the noble lord's poem,
the " Testament " of the low-class thief is in octaves.
The interlacing of the rimes is almost the same ;
there is the same mingling of seriousness and raillery,
of enthusiasm and of commonplace. Next to a page
wet with tears comes a chaplet of absurdities and con-
undrums as wretched as the puns of the English noble-
man ; the effect produced by a suave painting is
destroyed by a grotesque sketch in Callot's manner.
One description leads to another. The ironical be-
quests follow each other uninterruptedly. To this
man a ballad, to that one a rondeau, to another an old
shoe or a shaving-dish ; all the caprices of the most
erratic fancy are to be found in the two Testaments of
Villon. For there are two, the Lesser and the Great.
But the point in which the two poets — placed, one
at the foot of the ladder, the other at the top — most

THE GROTESQUES

resemble each other is in the bitter disenchantment,
the sad, deep glance cast upon things of this world, the
regret for the past, the feeling for what is beautiful and
good which survives the apparent degradation, the loss
of all illusion, and the desperate melancholy which is
the result thereof. Villon, because of his habitually
ignoble life, mourns with less elegance than Brummel's
fashionable rival, but his cry of pain, though not modu-
lated with so much art, is none the less true and
painful.

** In the year thirty of my age,

When deep I drank of every shame.

Not born all fool, nor yet all sage j

Spite of much woe that to me came.

Whereof no part was spared to me

By hand of Thibault d'Aussigny."

(It is from this passage that we learn the exact date of
Villon's birth. He was born in 1431, the "Testa-
ment" having been composed in 146 1.)

" Sinner am I, and know it well ;
Yet God doth not my death desire.
But that I change and righteous live ;
Plainer than any by sin attacked —
Although for sin Himself did die —
God truly sees, and His mercy great —
If conscience make me grieve for sin —
By His good grace full pardon grants.

FRANCOIS VILLON

<< If by my death the common weal
Could profit aught in any way,
To die" the death of vilest men
Myself I 'd doom, so God help me !
Harm I do not to old or young,
Whether they live or eke be dead :
Never do mountains their places change
Forward or back for a beggar's sake.

*' The least of those akin to me
Come forward and me disown ;
Forgetful of all natural ties.
Because no wealth by me is owned.

" God knows that had I studied
In my hot, mad days of youth,
And lived aright, now in good sooth
House and soft couch should I own.
But woe is me ! from school I fled.
Just as still does a naughty boy ;
And now as these sad words I pen
My poor heart nigh to breaking comes.

" My days have passed away,
As Job doth say."

It is not possible for a man to speak more convinc-
ingly, and to express himself in a more bitter and
touching fashion. Then he looks around, and finding
himself alone, he says, —

THE GROTESQUES

' ' Where are now the gallants full of grace
With whom I walked in days of youth,
Who sang so well and spoke so fair,
Who joked and laughed so merrily ?
Some now are dead and laid out stark —
Nothing is left of them by now.
Others have entered Paradise —
All that are left may good God save!

" Others again by now have grown,
God be thanked, to lords and sires ;
But others, nude, on roads do beg,
And bread they know by sight alone.
And others yet, in cloistered cells.
Are monks Carthusian, Celestine,
Booted and hosed in wretched shape —
And these the varied fates of all! "

This trait, Jnd bread they know by sight alone^ could
occur only to a man who has starved more than once.
Villon, who was hungry to death three-quarters of his
life long, always speaks of any kind of food with
singular emotion and respect ; consequently all culinary
details — and they are numerous — are lovingly men-
tioned and caressed. Gastronomic nomenclature
abounds in every part, —

" Sauces and broth, and great fat fish,
Flawns and tarts, poached eggs and fried,
Scrambled and served in many ways.

FRANC;qIS VILLON

" Savoury morsels and delicate,
Capons -and pigeons and fatted hens,
Perch, and chickens, all white meat.

" And every day a fatted goose,
Or else a capon rich with fat."

An amusing thing is the grudge he bears to Thibault
d'Aussigny, not because Thibault kept him in prison
and wanted to hang him, but because he made him
drink cold water and eat dry bread, —

** Upon a small loaf he fed me
And water cold a summer long.
Free handed or close, mean was he to me:
God requite him as he treated me !

*« Thank God, and thank Jacques Thibault too,
Who made me drink cold water so ;
And in a dungeon deep, not one on high,
Made me a gag so often chew."

On the other hand, the gratitude which he expresses
for a certain Perrot Girard, a barber by profession, who
gave him fat pork to eat for a whole week, is worth
noting. He is as stout a drunkard as he is a stout
eater. He knows that den, the Pine Cone, and other
taverns of the day better than any other man. To

3 33

THE GROTESQUES

mix water with wine appears to him an unpardonable
crime, and he is far from dreading the gallows as much
as he does a thin drink.

Next to the bottle and the stewpan, he thought
much of death. He constantly refers to it, and his
reflections, always deep and philosophical, are clothed
in surprisingly energetic and accurate language. Hard
though life has been for him, he clings to it, and cries
like Maecenas, " I care not, provided I live." Before
La Fontaine, he found out that " Better is a live clown
than a dead emperor."

This is the way he puts it, —

"Better live poor in coarse stuff clad,
Than lord to have been and in fine tomb rot."

He tries to find consolation in the thought that his fate
is the common fate of all : —

«« So I am not, this well I know,
An angel's son, and do not wear
A starry crown upon my brow.
My sire is dead; God rest his soul!
His corpse below a stone doth lie ;
My mother too will die, I trow —
She knows it well, the poor old dame —
Nor shall her son on earth remain.

FRANgOIS VILLON

" I know that rich and poor alike,
Scholars-or fools, cleric or lay.
Nobles and clowns, the free, the mean,
The great, the small, the fair, the plain,
The dames that wear their rufts so high,
Whatever their station in life may be.
Padding their figure, painting their face,
Shall Death catch up, and none escape.

"And whether Paris or Helen die.
Whoever dieth does so in pain
So great that breath it takes away j
The gall it bursts upon his heart.
Then sweats he, God! a hideous sweat,
And from his ills no rest doth find.
For never a brother, or child or sister,
At such a time would stand his bail.

" Death makes him shudder and grow pale,
Draws in his nose, his veins doth stretch ;
Makes his neck swell, his flesh grow weak.
Stretches joints and nerves doth strain.
Thou feminine frame, that tender art,
Polished, and delicate, and most rare.
Must thou these dread ills all await ?
Ay, forsooth, or to heaven pass alive."

Then follow three ballads, magnificent in their
monotony, upon one and the same thought, with the
same recurring refrain. In the first the poet asks
what has become of the beautiful women of the days
of yore, of Flora, the handsome Roman, of Thais, of

THE GROTESQUES

Echo, of Heloise, of Blanche, of Bertha with the long
feet, of Alix. What has become of them all ?
" But where are the snows of yester-year ? "

Such is the refrain of the first ballad.

In the second he takes up the men. Where are now,
he asks. Pope Calixtus, Alphonso, King of Arragon,
Arthur, King of Brittany, Lancelot and Charles VII,
and Duguesclin, the stout Breton ?

" But where is the brave Charlemagne ? "
is the sad answer he makes to his own question.

In the third ballad, taking up the same thought, but
in a broader way and as if to be done with everybody,
he inquires what has become of the brave knights, the
heralds, the trumpeters, the pursuivants. The refrain
now is, —

" Carried away by the wind are they."

After this long enumeration, he comes to the con-
clusion that he may as well die, poor devil that he is : —

" Who, owning neither dish nor plate,
Never had even a parsley sprig :

Since popes, and kings, and sons of kings,
And those conceived in royal wombs,
Now cold and dead are laid in earth."

~l6

FRANgOIS VILLON

Nevertheless, the thought of death worries him, and
later on he returns to the subject and writes the fine
meditation which I shall now transcribe. The scene
is laid in the charnel house of the monastery of the
Innocents. He has just ironically bequeathed his
great spectacles to the inmates of the Blind Asylum
so that they may separate in the cemetery the honest
and the dishonest people : —

'• Here nor laugh nor play is seen.
Of what avail they once had wealth,
And once did lie in great state beds,
Or wine drank deep, their paunches filling,
Or their gay life of song and dance
Ready to lead at any time ?
Their pleasures sweet all fail them now,
And sin alone of them remains.

'<When I behold those skulls all bare.
Heaped up within this charnel house,
Masters of requests were they all.
Or household comptrollers at the least ;
Or market-commissioners one and all :
The one or other I may them call.
For be they bishops or linkmen low.
Naught can I tell of their former lot.

** And those who in this mortal life
One for another quick friendship felt ;
Of these some at one time ruled.
And feared and served by others were.

THE GROTESQUES

Behold them now content alike,
As in a heap they pell-mell lie.
Lordships no more do they now own :
No one is clerk, or master there.

*'Now they are dead, God rest their souls!
As for their bodies, they rotted are.
Whether were lords or noble dames,
Whether tenderly and softly fed
On cream, on porridge and on rice,
Their bones to dust have all returned,
And heedless are of play and strife —
May gentle Jesus them absolve ! "

Along with the thought of death, there Is another
which haunts and torments Villon : What becomes
of prostitutes when they grow old ? The prostitute
troubles him considerably ; one can see that she has
filled a large place In his life. He knows her thor-
oughly, understands her and describes her In every
aspect, speaks of her sometimes with love and com-
miseration, sometimes with hatred and insult, but
never with indifference. He cannot be cold in the
presence of so important a subject. He gets excited,
he becomes enthusiastic for or against her ; he covers
her with mud or with tears, he excuses her, he ex-
plains her, says how she has got to be what she Is ;
and the story is the same as that which Alfred de

FRAN(;:OIS VILLON

Musset makes Monna Belcolore begin and Julia
finish : —

•* Honest they were, in very sooth,
Without reproach or blame in auglit.
Though 't is true that at the first
Of these maids each and every one
Took, ere dishonour to her came,
A clerk, a monk, or a layman each
To quench the flame of love that burned
Hotter than did Saint Anthon's fire.

*• So did, according to decree.
Their friends, as plain it doth appear j
They loved within a secret place.
For none but they did share that love.
Natheless, such love will pass away :
For she who did but one man love.
Parted from him and kept away.
Preferring much to love each one."

Four hundred years before Alexander Dumas, he
almost literally discov^ered the poor weak woman. I
know nothing finer in any poet's work than the re-
grets of the beautiful Heaulmiere, that is, of the
beauty who was Heaulmiere, to use his own expres-
sion. The scene is admirably described. Three
or four old, blear-eyed, wrinkled women are seated on
their heels in an evil-looking den, under the projecting
mantel of a great chimney, up which ascends in spirals

db dfc dt d: i; db 4: ^ 4: ^ ^ i::fc ^ tfc tfc d: ^ db tfc Jb db 4r :!:

THE GROTESQUES

a thin wisp of bluish smoke issuing from a heap of
thatch, — for wood is a thing unknown in such a
house, where the window-panes are made of cobwebs.
Heaulmlere, who was lovely and lustful in the days of
her youth, mourns and regrets what can no longer
return ; the other old women, formerly prostitutes like
herself, acquiesce in what she says with shaking head.

«' Methinks I hear the sad complaint
Of the fair one that vended helms,
Wishing she migiit be a girl again.
And in this manner plaining :
Ah ! wicked age, ah ! age so harsh,
Why hast thou me so soon struck down ?
What stays my hand ? Why strike I not ?
And with one blow destroy my life ?

•'From me you 've taken th' exalted sway
Which beauty had on me bestowed,
O'er clerk and trader and priest alway ;
For in those days was no man bom
That all his goods would not have given me.
However later repent he might —
Provided I to him did give
What prudes ill-bred would him refuse.

" Yet many a man did I refuse —
Not very wise therein was I —
For love of a youth of clever mind.
To whom myself I freely gave ;

FRAN(;QIS VILLON

And whomsoever I deceived.
By my^sours weal I loved him well 1
Yet harshly did he with me deal,
And loved me only for my gold.

" Yet could he not so treat mc ill,

Or kick me sore, but I loved him still ;
And though he dragged me on my back,
If only bade me then him kiss,
I all my pains at once forgot.
The glutton, soiled with sin.
Embraced me then — No profit hence,
For naught is left but sin and shame.

" He died — 't is thirty years and more,
And hoary headed, old, I yet survive.
Alas ! when good old days I now recall.
What once I was, what now I am ;
When I behold myself undressed and nude,
And see I am so greatly changed.
Poor and meagre, dried up, wizened,
I could cry out for very wrath.

" Where have gone my shining brow,
My hair so fine, my eyebrows arched.
The broad 'tween eyes, the radiant glance.
With which the cleverest I did catch ?
My fine straight nose, nor large nor small,
My pretty ears so closely set.
My well mark'd chin, my clear sweet face,
And my beauteous crimson lips ?

•1* ri« ^t, rf^ »1« rLt •!,• rL, •!>• •!• tLt «ft**S* «i* •£• •£« «j« *!• ^« •^ ^* <4* •§• «^

THE GROTESQUES

"My shapely shoulders fair,
My two long arms and handsome hands ;
My twin small breasts, and well-fleshed hips
High and shapely, and right fit
To play the game of love's debate ?
My strong loins and the daintiness
Between broad, firm thighs set,
Within its pretty garden-close ?

" Wrinkled the brow, and gray the hair ;
Fallen the brows and dulled the eyes
That flashed so many a glance and smile,
Catching so many a trader then.
Hooked nose, of beauty shorn.
Ears that hang and hairy are ;
Ghastly faced, pallid and wan.
With sunken chin and puff"ed lips.

" Such the end of human beauty,

Arms grow short and hands contract.

Shoulders bowed and humped become.

As for breasts, they wither up,

And the hips are like the head.

As for dainty, fie upon it!

And the thighs, all withered up

And blotched all over like sausage skin.

" So the good times we regret.
Poor old hags together sitting,
Crouching low, on our heels resting,
By the mean little hempen fire —
Soon it flames, and soon goes out !
And yet of yore we were delicate !
Such is the fate of many a one."

^^4; 4; 4; 4; 4.4; 4; ^4^4. 4. 4; 4; 4.^4; 4; 4; 4; 4^ 4. 4;

FRANCOIS VILLON

This piece, one of the finest ever written by the
poet, shows how varied are the colours on his palette.
It is impossible to depict youth with more youthful
and fresher tints. The whole of the first part is so
carefully and accurately drawn that it would do honour
to a more modern painter. There is nothing in it of
Gothic stiffness ; it is lovingly executed and full of
charming details, the artlessness, the occasional crud-
ity of which I beg the reader to excuse. It is a cut-
purse who makes a prostitute talk ; it would be a mis-
take to ask for too much chastity in such a subject
treated by such an author. To cut these things out
would have been wicked. Certain things objection-
able in themselves cease to be so in a style which has
to be laboriously studied out and which may in some
respects be considered as a dead language. Nudities
in old paintings are in no wise reprehensible, and
awaken no evil thoughts ; they are a part of art and
nothing else ; and I shall always consider as stupid
vandalism the act of mistaken piety which caused
to be broken the stained-glass window representing
Saint Mary the Egyptian offering to the boatman,
in payment for her passage, the use of her beautiful
body.

THE GROTESQUES

The second part, which is antithetical to the first, is
no less remarkable. The poet takes pleasure in de-
forming the face he has created j he digs out the eyes,
he plucks out the eyebrows, he scores the forehead, he
changes the golden hair into silver hair, pulls the nose
down to the mouth and pulls the chin up to the nose.
The beautiful and blooming lips that were crimson as
roses, are now only withered and wrinkled skin ; the
long white arms which voluptuously unfolded to attract
their prey are shortened and drawn up, as are the
shoulders; the fair, firm, polished thighs which he has
described so complacently are now fleshless and marked
with red stains. The charming young girl is now but
a spectre, an old woman, a regular broomstick witch.
He casts away all the perfections he has created and
tramples on them with ghoulish delight. It seems as
if he took this way of avenging himself on the little
Macee of Orleans, who took his belt, as he says, and
who is a very bad lot, on Catherine de Vaucelles, on
Jeanneton, on Marion the Idol, and other creatures of
the same kidney, to whom, it would appear, he had no
great reason to be grateful.

What think you follows this terrible attack — advice
to return to virtue or something of the sort ? Not at

FRANCOIS VILLON

all. Precepts on how to fleece a man and to turn
one's youth to account.

" For value there is none in a woman old,
She 's naught but coin that is refused."

True, it would be time and trouble lost to preach to
Blanche la Savatiere, to Guillemette, to Catherine and
Jeanneton ; it would be casting one's moralities before
prostitutes.

" If for money alone they love,
They are loved but for an hour.
Liberally all men they love.
And broadly smile when purses gape."

Human nature is ever the same, whatever dabblers
in local colour may say ; and these lines written for
lustful girls in 1 461 would be very applicable to-day.
The practice has not varied.

" Soon your windows closed must be
When wrinkled hags you all become,

Girls their bosoms freely showing
That many men they may attract."

That was just the way the sirens used to do.
Villon, a drunkard, a gross eater, a thief, would
have been incomplete had he not been the knight of

THE GROTESQUES

some street Aspasia ; he was so, and in the " Great
Testament " he has included a ballad which he dedicates
to big Margot, the Helen whose Paris he was. It is
impossible for me to transcribe this ballad, for the cant
and the decency of the modern French tongue will
have none of the liberties and the free and easy ways
of its old Gallic sister. It is a great pity, for never
was a bolder picture traced by a bolder hand. The
touch is firm and marked, the drawing clean and
warm ; there is no exaggeration or wrong colouring ;
the word expresses the thing itself, it is a literal trans-
lation ; hideous lasciviousness cannot be carried farther.
It is nauseating. The attitude of big Margot, her ges-
tures, her words, are thoroughly those of a prostitute.
She utters two words : one is an oath, by the death of
Christ ; the other an expression of ignoble tenderness,
fit to disgust you with women for a fortnight. This
big, blowsy, paunchy prostitute, whose colour is brighter
than rouge, that ribald wench filled full of meat and
wine, drunk and half undressed, mad, howling, and
shouting, mingling her filthy caresses with kisses that
stink of wine, and dangerous hiccoughs. Is painted in
masterly fashion with three or four strokes of the
brush. Have you seen any of the libertine etchings of

■ ^ 46

j|. 4; 4; 4^ 4; 4; 4; 4; 4^ 4* 4^ 4;4. 4. 4; 4. 4; 4; 4* 4. 4« ^ 4; 4*

FRANCOIS VILLON

Rembrandt, — Bathsheba, Susannah, or especially Poti-
phar, — a marvellous mingling of the fantastic and the
real ? They are admirable yet disgusting things.
Their nudity is cruel ; the forms are monstrously true,
and though abominable, resemble so much the most
delicate forms of the most charming women that they
make you blush in spite of yourself. It is a peculiarity
of the masters that they know how to conceal a secret
beauty within the most hideous creations. Well, if
you have ever seen one of those etchings, you can
form a most accurate idea of the figure drawn by
Villon. The background, though scarcely indicated
and half in shadow, can easily be guessed : a ceiling
crossed by smoky rafters, an oak table and a broken
coffer, a serge bedstead of a filthy green, worn by long
and frequent service — the whole of the very scanty fur-
niture of the prostitute. Through the half-open door
are seen coming the clerics and the laymen, the citi-
zens and the soldiers whom lust drives into this abomi-
nable den. At the back, our poet with his sarcastic
look, pitcher in hand, who hurries down to the cellar
and offers bread and cheese to the new-comers, ready
to thrash them in fine fashion if they refuse to pav
their bill, and advising them to return if they are satis-

THE GROTESQUES

fied. In the foreground the divinity of the temple,
rouged, dressed up, beribboned, and laden with sham
jewellery, in the full dress of her profession : a Teniers
in the very best style of the master ; which Mathurin,
the great poet, did not disdain, which he restored,
retouched, and framed in his magnificent alexandrines ;
which reaches to Ronsard on the one hand and on the
other to Corneille. What sanctifies this impure picture
are the last two sombre, desperate verses, which are, as
it were, the finishing touch to the picture : —

" Filthy we are, and filth follows us.

We fly from honour, and it flies from us.'*

The poor scholar Villon did not have much luck
in love, if we are to believe him, and he may surely
be believed, for men are braggarts in such matters.
Nor is it very surprising. He had no money in
his purse — supposing he had one ; he was any-
thing but good-looking, thin and dried up like a man
hanged in summer, of a complexion as dark as a black-
berry or a broom used to sweep out an oven ; he had no
more hair, beard or eyebrows than a peeled turnip, —
that is his own expression. Although he was scarce
twenty, he looked old ; for he was worn threadbare by
all sorts of excesses and privations. All this did not

FRANgOIS VILLON

make up a very pleasant youth, so his lamentations are
comical. He calls himself a martyr to love ; he com-
poses a second epitaph for himself, in which he pre-
tends he has been slain by one of Cupid's darts.
Jeanneton turns him out, Catherine de Vaucelles has
him beaten as unmercifully as if he were linen washed
at the riverside ; he is deceived, robbed in every fash-
ion ; he is made to believe that bladders are lanterns ;
he is a dupe, he who dupes everybody, — so true it is
that love makes everybody foolish, as he says in one
of his ballads, in which he endeavours, according to his
custom, to console himself by recalling a greater than
he, Solomon, to wit, who turned idolator for love,
Samson, who lost his clear-sightedness, Orpheus, the
gentle minstrel, Narcissus the handsome, and Sardina,
the brave knight (you would never guess that he means
Sardanapalus), David the wise prophet, and Herod, and
so many more. " This is not nonsense," he adds with
most charming and artless self-possession ; " blessed is
he who has nothing to do with it."

Villon, as he appears to us in his work, is the most
complete incarnation of the people of that time. He
seems to have suggested to Rabelais the delightful
character of Panurge. And is there not, indeed, a very

4 49

THE GROTESQUES

great likeness between Panurge and Villon the scholar ?
— Panurge, with his nose like a razor handle, Panurge
the poltroon, the guzzler, the boaster, the street-walker,
with his twenty-six pockets full of pincers, hooks, and
scissors wherewith to cut purses, and many another evil
instrument ; Panurge, about as gross as he could be, not
a bad fellow in his own way, save that he is somewhat
libidinous and constantly subject to the disease called
lack of funds, in spite of his sixty-three ways of obtain-
ing them ; Panurge who is impious and superstitious,
and who really fears naught save blows and danger ;
and Villon, with his gipsy complexion, his long, dry,
clutching hands, his ragged coat frayed and fringed,
and shabby as that of an apple gatherer in Perche ;
Villon in ecstasy before the rich soups of the Jaco-
bins ; Villon frequenting houses of ill-fame while pass-
ing as a suffering lover ; Villon, invoking at every line
God and the Blessed Virgin and all the saints in the
calendar," and never letting pass a single opportunity of
turning into ridicule priests and monks, whatever their
gown and whatever their colour. Both thoroughly
hated the citizens and the watch, — in other words,
proprietors and the guardians of property. They are
two sorts of eclectic philosophers, who seize upon

FRAN(;OIS VILLON

their own wherever they find it. And then, both ever
suffering frorfi an empty purse j for if they have sixty-
three ways of getting money, they have two hundred
and ten of spending it ; having constantly recourse to
expedients, being constantly within a hair's-breadth of
the gibbet and avoiding hanging only by dint of wit and
genius. Complete as is Panurge, Villon nevertheless
is still more complete ; there is in him a melancholy
strain lacking in the other. He feels his wretchedness;
something human still abides within his breast, — he
loves his mother. Panurge seems to have fallen from
heaven and to proceed from nothing at all. The
thought that he has a father and a mother never occurs
to us ; he is probably the fruit of the loves of a ham
and a bottle, or he grew up between the paving-stones
like a mushroom at the door of some lupanar. His
sarcasm is pitiless, his laughter is never tempered by
tears. Nor has he his prototype's loving respect for
woman's beauty; his lust is filthier, and has something
monkish about it ; it is the lust of a satyr rather than
that of a man ; he sees nothing beyond physical enjoy-
ment, the ideal love is unknown to him. He would
not have found such a line as Villon's —
" Two were we, with but one heart."

■ %

M..i>

THE GROTESQUES

Panurge, rejected, has the woman who has repelled
him filthied by dogs ; Villon breathes this elegy : —

" The days will come that shall wither up,
Turn yellow and dry your beauty's bloom.
I 'd laugh, if then young I could walk ;
But, alas ! not so, and folly 't would be :
Old shall I be ; you, wan and ugly then.
So now, drink, deep, long as the brook doth run 5
Do not bring to all the grief.
Without increasing it, a poor wretch to aid."

One would think that it was Beranger singing, —
"Old age will come, oh, lovely mistress mine ! "

The point of likeness between Villon and Deburau,
that other admirable poet of the people, who does not
like to hear the nightingale warble, is the singular
contempt which he feels for pastoral nature. In his
verses, so full of colour and in which there are charm-
ing picturesque details, you never get the least glimpse
of a landscape. There is a ballad in which he ex-
plains at length this antipathy of his. It is a charming
genre picture. A canon, fat as ecclesiastics like him are,
and who does not give the lie to the proverb, is seated,
or rather is lying, upon a soft eider-down in a well
closed-in and well carpeted room. The fire burns

FRANgOIS VILLON

bright, well up into the chimney. By his side is lying
his housekeeper, Mistress Sydoine, white, dulcet, soft-
skinned, rosy-cheeked. Flagons and cups full of hip-
pocras are placed on the table. The joyous couple
cast away the clothes that inconvenience them, laugh,
play, kiss, and fondle each other. The poet, thin,
starving, shivering with cold, looks at them from out-
side through a mortise hole, and envying their happiness
exclaims piteously, —

" Then did I know that grief to assuage.
Naught is so sure as to live at ease.

" Had Franc-Gontier and Helen his mate,
That pleasant life tasted and known.
Onions and garlic that make strong breath.
They ne'er would have touched, nor burned brown crust,
Their curds or their porridge.

And never for garlic cared — this I say in all good grace.
If under the rosebush they boast they lay.
Which is the best ? A bed and chairs.
Which think you ? Need one long muse ?
Naught is so sweet as to live at ease."

Unquestionably Villon did not care much for the
ideal ; but putting him aside, there are enough of the
Gothic writers who have given us descriptions of
the country. On the other hand, he initiates us into
the whole of the home life of the Middle Ages ; he is

THE GROTESQUES

as interesting to the erudite as to the poet ; he makes
us acquainted with numberless fashions and manners
that are to be met with nowhere else ; he takes us
shamelessly everywhere, into lupanars, taverns, tennis
courts, restaurants, hovels, and dens of all kinds ; he de-
scribes the hostess and the sign ; he does not spare us the
least detail. The company is a curious mixture. All
are thieves, scoundrels, prostitutes, procuresses, fences,
and other worthy professions. The men are Rene de
Montigny, Colin de Cayeux, thieves, and bosom friends
of the poet, who were strung up ; Michault Culdoue,
Brother Beaude, and others, who deserved to share the
same fate ; Fremin, the little cleric, who will certainly
be hanged, for with such a professor as Villon he can-
not end otherwise ; Master Jehan Cotard, the jolly
drunkard who bumps up against the butchers' stalls.
And among the women we have Maschecroue, Marion
Peautarde, Marion the Idol, Blanche, Rose, Margot,
mistresses of Villon ; little iMacee of Orleans, who
corrupted him ; Catherine de Vaucelles, who had him
beaten, Ysabeau and Guillemette, Denise, and a score
of others, for our poet had more than one acquaintance
among this class of people. All of them swarm and
stir, live, get drunk, make love, and rob passers-bv,

FRANCOIS VILLON

and are reproduced with the most marvellous power.
Villon needs but a word, a touch, to draw a personage j
he hits on the distinctive character with singular sa-
gacity. He reconstructs completely a man by means
of a single word, of an epithet. The attitudes of his
figures are indicated in a clean, sharp way which recalls
Albert Diirer. What think you of this group ? —

" Look at these two or three seated on the hem of their skirts
in chapel or church."

or of this one i* —

" Hoods well down upon their heads ; thumbs within their
girdles stuck . . . saying, Hey? What?"

Among all these abandoned women a single woman's
figure appears pure and spotless, — it is his mother.
The bequest he makes to her is most graceful and
poetic ; it is a ballad to the Virgin.

" Lady of Heaven, and of Earth the Queen,
Empress of the Infernal Swamps,
Receive me your most Christian one,
And of your elect let me be.
Although I never aught was worth,
Your grace, O Lady, Mistress mine.
Is greater yet than all my sins.

THE GROTESQUES

Without that grace may soul not die,
Nor Heaven reach — I tell no lie,
And in that faith I '11 live and die.

" To your Son tell that I am His,
And let Him all my sins forgive.
As Magdalen may He pardon me.
And as Theophilus pardoned He,
Who through your grace absolved was.
Although to Satan himself had pledged.
Preserve me from ever doing that,
O Virgin! that whole still bear
The Sacrament adored at mass.
And in this faith I '11 live and die.

Ill

" A woman I, both poor and old.
Unlearned too, who letters never knew ;
Upon the walls of parish church
The Paradise I painted see, with harps and lutes,
And Hell, wherein the damned boil.
The one I dread, the other joys, delights.
Be mine the joy, O Goddess great.
To whom we sinners have recourse.
In faith, without deceit or sloth.
And in this faith I live and die."

That last stanza is delightful. It is like one ot
those old paintings on a gold background by Giotto
or Cimabue. The outline is simple and artless, some-

FRANCOIS VILLON

what hard, like primitive things ; the tones are bright
but not crude, although the gradations are lacking in
several places. It is true Catholic poetry, the poetry of
a sincere believer, such as a greater poet could not write
now. Amid the whole company of ballads its sisters,
which are either fantastic or libertine or vile, this one
blooms pure and white, like a lily in the centre of a
mudhole. It shows that Villon could have done other
work than he has done had he been lucky enough to
meet with an Alexander as did the pirate Diomedes.
But such fortune never came to him, and fate was too
strong for him; in spite of his good intentions, he had
to tread to the end the road on which he had entered.
He died, no one knows where, poor, no doubt, as he
had lived, —

" Now my body I give and bequeath to our common
mother, Eartho Not very fat will the worms find it, for too
hard a war has hunger waged. Pray God it may be delivered
soon ; from dust it came, to dust returns. All things, if they
stray not far, gladly to their place return,"

Ring out the belfry bells with double swing, ye
ringers ! Four loaves shall you have. Come hither,
sham pilgrims debauching at Ruel, sham invalids, sham
epileptics, idiots, cut-purses, thieves, Bohemians, gipsies,

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THE GROTESQUES

Zingari, vagabonds, evil youths, matrons, lustful girls,
child-stealers, fortune-tellers, witches, and procuresses ;
come away from the Court of Miracles to the chapel
of Saint-Avoye to hear the service, and to follow the
bier; for the master of you all, Villon the scholar, is
dead, — of love, he says ; of hunger, I believe.

Theophile de Viau

THE GROTESQUES

Theophile de Viau

IT is of a truly great poet that we are going to
speak this time. He died young, was perse-
cuted his life long, and he was ignored after
death. His unlucky fate was fulfilled indeed ;
he himself says that he was born under an unlucky star.
He would be completely forgotten but for two ridicu-
lous lines of Nicolas Boileau in his "Art of Poetry : "

" To Mallierbe, to Racine, they prefer Theophile,
And the spangles of Tasso to gold of Virgil ; "

and but for a wretched conceit drawn from his tragedy

of " Pyramus and Thisbe " : —

" This the dagger which with the blood of its master
Has foully stained itself. It blushes, the traitor! " —

lines quoted in all treatises on rhetoric as an abnormal
example of bad taste, but which do not prevent de Viau
from being a poet in the widest sense of the term and
from having written one of the lines most praised in
Delille's work, —

" He hears but silence, sees naught but shade/'

THE GROTESQUES

and many more, which luckier men than he have
profited by ; among others that very Nicolas Boileau
who speaks of him in such disdainful fashion. It is
true that he mentions de Viau along with Tasso, and
that is an insult which one might well envy.

Before I had read even a single line of his, I already
felt a tender interest in him on account of his name,
Theophile, which is mine, as you are aware — or per-
haps you are not aware. It was absurd, perhaps, but I
confess that all the harm that was said of Theophile de
Viau seemed to me to be addressed to myself, Theo-
phile Gautier. I would willingly have thrashed that
pedant Boileau for the harsh lines in which he insults
my poor namesake, and cast to the flames the treatise
on rhetoric which contains the impertinent quotation.
Never have I felt more deeply criticisms addressed to me
personally. Forgive this foolish piece of pride, but it
did not appear to me possible that a man bearing my
name should be such a wretched poet as it was main-
tained that de Viau had been. There is nothing strik-
ing about the name Theophile, and perhaps I am
myself a proof that it may be borne and the bearer
write very bad verse ; but I have heard that obscure
name spoken so softly by such gentle voices that I

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THEOPHILE DE VIAU

love it as my own, and love it in others, and would
not change it Tor your name William, old Shakespeare,
nor for your Noel, O handsome Gordon Byron.

It became necessary for the repose of my mind to
confirm my entirely gratuitous supposition that Theo-
phile de Viau was in fact as good a poet as I, Theophile
Gautier, A rapid reading of his works was more than
sufficient to convince me of this fact, and I believe that
this article, with a few quotations taken here and there
at haphazard, will make you share my opinion, how-
ever great admirers of Boileau you may be.

The question comes home to me and is almost a
family affair, so I shall give you no rest until you have
bent the knee before my idol. I tolerate very willingly
any sort of a religion, but I am most fanatically intol-
erant as regards Theophile, and if you do not believe
in him as I do, I cannot see how you are going to be
saved. Now, was it not a splendid idea in Theophile's
godmother to give him that name and not another one ?
It is quite certain that if she had bestowed upon him
the appellation Christopher or Bartholomew I should
not have troubled about him in the slightest, which
would have been a great misfortune for him, to begin
with, for you, and for me also.

THE GROTESQUES

On the titlepage of his works Theophile gives only
his Christian name, I know not why. His family
name was de Viau, and not Viaud as it is commonly
written. A passage from his apology written by him-
self testifies to this, and Father Garasse, his sworn foe,
plays on this name with his usual amenity, and by a
change worthy of a scholar and a theologian of the
sixteenth century he calls him veau (calf).

Theophile de Viau was born in 1620 at Boussiere-
Sainte-Radegonde, a small village in Agenois, on the
left bank of the river Lot, some distance above Aiguillon
and about a mile and a half from Port Sainte-Marie, as
we learn from several passages in his works and from
a very eulogious poem, probably composed by Scudery,
printed at the beginning of the volume. The biog-
raphers and annotators who have said that he was
born at Clerac were in error. It has been claimed
that he was a tavern-keeper's son. That is an illus-
tration of the devilish animosity entertained for him,
for his family was well known, and nothing was easier
than to prove the absurdity of such a statement ; but
Father Garasse did not stick at such trifles. Theo-
phile's ancestor had been secretary to the Queen of
Navarre ; Henry IV had appointed his uncle governor

THEQPHILE DE VIAU

of Touraine as a recompense for his loyal services, and

his father, having practised at the bar at Bordeaux, had

withdravi'n to Boussiere on account of the civil wars,

fearing to be disturbed because he was a Protestant.

" There stands a mansion small,
At the foot of a great hill."

A tower built by the poet's ancestors draws attention
to the manor from quite a distance, rising as it does
above the humbler middle-class houses grouped around
it. The landscape has a most romantic aspect. On
the hill the soil is rather poor and rocky, but it pro-
duces an excellent claret, and one can live there very
comfortably. Below, the meadows are green and rich,
the woods well foliaged and shady. Boussiere is a
perfect little terrestrial paradise, if we are to believe
literally the poetic descriptions of it which Theophile
wrote in his dungeon. For many months and many
years of his short, well filled life were spent in prison,
and the window of a cell forms an admirable frame for
a landscape. Everything appears much more charming
when one is away from it, and pictures seen in the
camera obscura of memory stand out with more vigour.
In a passage which we reserve the right to cite he
speaks of his hereditary patrimony and tells us that he

] 6^

THE GROTESQUES

had a steward called Belgarde. There is nothing about
this which smacks of the tavern. A house large enough
to have a steward is not usually turned into an inn.
Besides, Theophile in his apology, written in Latin, —
for he wrote at least as well in that tongue as in French,
— speaks plainly on this point : —

" Earn domuni quam tu cauponam vocas, aulici p lures, at que
ii qui melioris notce dignitatis su?it, invisere et pro tenui nostra
proventu aliquot diesfrugaliter excepti, saltern immunes abicre.' '

**The house which you call a tavern, several courtiers of
the highest nobility have not disdained to visit ; and having
been frugally treated, owing to our modest income, for a
number of days, they at least went away without having to
pay anything."

*' Rem novam, O Garasse, filius cauponis in celeb err ima
Galliarum regis aula annos ultra tredecim nutritus, tot nobilium
familiaritate not us ! ' '

** A tavern-keeper's son for more than thirteen years at
the court of a king of France, and publicly honoured by the
intimacy of so many great personages, would be a novelty,
O Garassus! "

In this retreat of Boussiere Theophile's father gave

himself up wholly to the study of literature, and he

probably gave his son his first lessons, for it would
_ _

THEQPHILE DE VIAU

appear from the letter to Balzac that he had not re-
ceived any regular education : " My teachers have
been Scottish scholars only, and yours Jesuit doctors."
This did not prevent his being a very learned and
excellent poet. A passage of the " Curious Doctrine "
tells us that he studied philosophy at Saumur.

He came to Paris in 1610, He was then twenty
years old, but if we are to believe a portrait which
illustrates the last edition of his works, he was any-
thing but good-looking. The portrait represents him
with an antique pallium over his shoulder and a laurel
wreath around his head, producing a singular contrast
with his curled-up moustaches and his beard cut in
the most recent fashion. He has a bony, thin face,
much seamed in every direction, and a very promi-
nent brow ; eyes not very large, but very brilliant ; a
somewhat large nose, though aquiline ; the lower
lip very full and projecting disdainfully, — the face of
a man who has lived and suffered, who has thought
and acted, who has lacked everything and gone to
excess in evervthing; the face of a poet who has lived,
in a word, which unfortunately is almost too rare
among poets. The portrait is further confirmed by
these words of Theophile's : " Nature and fortune

THE GROTESQUES

have not given me many pleasant parts ; " but his
natural qualities, his subtile and ready mind more
than compensated for the absence of physical charms,
and he was none the less welcome in the best of
company and sought out by the young nobles who
piqued themselves on having a taste for poetry. And
indeed, it would be difficult to have a more fortu-
nate poetic temperament than had Theophile. He is
passionately fond, not of virtuous men and beautiful
women only, but also of every beautiful thing. He
loves a fine day, limpid streams, mountain prospects,
far-stretching plains, rich forests, the shores of the
sea, its storms and its calms ; he loves all that more
particularly appeals to the senses : music, flowers,
handsome clothes, hunting, fine horses, perfumes,
good cheer. He is of an easy and sympathetic dis-
position, ready to grow hot about anything and every-
thing ; a perfect, many-faceted piece of crystal which
reflects in each of its tints a different picture enliv-
ened and enriched with all the colours of Iris ; and
I really do not understand why his name should be
so perfectly forgotten, while that of Malherbe, the
sworn sorter-out of diphthongs, is everywhere hon-
ourably cited. But as we have already said, Theophile

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

was born urvier the most unlucky star, and prudent
men have ever proved victorious over bold men.
This explains how Malherbe, the grammarian, has
eclipsed Theophile, the poet.

About this time Theophile formed a friendship
with Balzac, the letter-writer, a friendship sufficiently
close to give rise to absurd gossip, the sure resource
of the evil-tempered who have nothing to say. They
travelled together to Holland, but quarrelled at the
end of their trip. The cause of their rupture is not
known accurately. A contemporary writer. Father
Goulu, the general of the reformed Cistercians, in
his " Letters of Phylarchus," merely says that Balzac
played a trick upon Theophile. The latter darkly
hints at several rather shady acts on the part of
Balzac. He reproaches him with being envious,
proud, servile, crotchety, of uneven temper, and a
plagiarist.

"Your face," he says, "and your naturally unpleasant
disposition have retained something of your original poverty
and the vice which usually accompanies it. I do not speak
of your stealing from authors ; the son-in-law of Dr. Baudius
accuses you of a much worse theft. On this point I would
rather be somewhat obscure than vindictive. If anything of

6g ■

THE GROTESQUES

the sort had turned up in my case you would have been the
death of me, and you would never have felt the terror which
my deliverance causes you. I expected while in captivity
that you would have some recollection of the obligations you
are under to me since our trip, but I find that you have tried
to harm me as much as you ought to have served me, and
that you hate me because you offended me. Had you been
honest enough to excuse yourself, I was generous enough to
forgive you. I am kind and obliging, you are cowardly and
sly, and I think you will always follow your inclination and
not mine. I do not repent having formerly drawn my sword
to avenge a thrashing you received. It was not my fault that
vour affront was not avenged. It was then, perhaps, that
you thought I was not a good poet because you saw I was
a very good soldier. I do not bring this forward to acquire
military glory or to reproach you in the least for your pol-
troonery, but to show you that you ought to have been silent
as to my faults, since I had always concealed yours. I am
neither a poet nor an orator, I have no knowledge of the
art ; I speak simply, and merely know how to write decently.
What brings me both friendship and envy is merely my easy
habits and incorruptible faithfulness, and my open profession
to love men who are neither rascals nor cowards; and here
it is that you and I prove to be unsuited to each other.
Having formerly promised me a friendship which I thoroughly
deserved, your disposition must have changed very greatly to
lead you to insult me in my person, and to strive with my

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

enemies as to which of you would most outrage me in my
affliction."

Balzac did not reply to this terrible letter, and that
silence proves that he must have been greatly in the
wrong since he allowed himself to be treated so sav-
agely after having been the aggressor and brought up
an old quarrel long since forgotten. Besides, Balzac's
attack is vague and full of declamation, and his con-
duct is inexcusable, while it must not be forgotten
that, at the moment, Theophile was imprisoned in
the Conciergerie, charged with a crime punishable by
death, in the same cell in which the regicide Ravaillac
had been placed.

On his return from Holland he composed for the
court festivals ballads, challenges, mottoes, and mas-
querades, which gained him much praise, such as
" Apollo, Champion," " The Prince of Cyprus," " The
Sailors," and other allegories in the taste of the day.
These compositions are full of conceits after the
Italian manner, and of excessive striving after ingen-
ious ideas, but they are at least as well written and as
clever as the best that Benserade and Bois-Robert
have left. In " Apollo, Champion " occur these
beautiful lines : —

THE GROTESQUES

" I give out the heat that gives life to roses
And brings back to life the buried fruits ;
I bestow colour and duration on things,
And the splendour of fair lilies is due to me.
When I depart a mantle of darkness
Covers heaven and earth with a horror cold.

The loveliest orchards are melancholy sights,
For when my eyes are closed, the world is dead."

Theophile indulged to excess the remarkable facility
which he possessed, for it is natural to man to go
to extremes in everything, even in his qualities. A
number of his impromptus have been preserved, for
he wrote impromptus and very charming ones. One
day, when he was shown a small equestrian statue of
Henry IV, he smiled and stroking the crupper of the
horse, he recited the following quatrain : —

" Small, pretty, gentle horse.

Easy to mount and dismount alike,
Though you are not a new Bucephalus,
You bear a greater than Alexander,"

which is certainly one of the most successful im-
promptus known.

About this time he wrote his tragedy of " Pasiphae,"
never performed, so far as I know, and not included
in his collected works, but printed separately in 1631,

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wvw M«« •«« «?• i^ ciW am ••• •«• •»• •»• w^ •»• •"• •*•♦ ••^ •^ **« •^^ •■*• *"• •'^ •'*• •■••

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

a few years after his death. In the introduction to
this play, which has now become extremely scarce, it
is said, —

** Many persons are of opinion that this poem is in the
style of the late Theophile. One of his most intimate friends
assured me that it is, and stated that Theophile composed it
when he was first at court. Trusdng to this information, I
have believed the fact to be as stated. The opinion which
several excellent persons have expressed of this work has
induced me to publish it as Theophile's, in order that it
may survive its author."

This play, with " Pyramus and Thisbe," forms the
entire dramatic production of Theophile, who, to tell
the truth, was not well fitted for play-writing, thanks
to the fantastical and erratic turn of his mind. He
did not deceive himself on this point, and explains
the reason with remarkable sagacity : —

" Formerly, when I wrote for the stage, the rules I was
constrained to observe gave me much trouble, and I was long
a martyr to that unpleasant sort of work ; but at last, the gods
be praised, I have given it up. Few have adventured on so
long a voyage without being wrecked and losing their way.
One needs, to succeed, to be miraculously wise and foolish at
one and the same time, to unite memory and judgment, to

THE GROTESQUES

invent freely, and to constantly draw verse in the same vein
from a full spring of expression. I propose to write verse
which shall not be constrained ; to let my mind wander in
lighter designs ; to seek some place where nothing shall dis-
please me ; to meditate at leisure ; to dream as J please ; to
pass whole hours in looking at myself in springs ; to listen as
in a dream to the babble of the brooks ; to write in the woods ;
to break off, to be silent, to compose a quatrain without think-
ing of what I am doing."

These remarks are as poetic as they are accurate,
— for the stage absolutely excludes fantasy. Extraor-
dinary ideas stand out too boldly, and the footlights
light up too vividly the frail creatures of imagination.
The pages of a book are more complaisant, the im-
palpable phantom of the idea rises slowly before the
reader, who beholds it only with the eyes of the mind.
On the stage the idea becomes material and palpable
in the person of the actor; the idea puts on powder
and rouge, wears a wig, corks its eyebrows to make
them blacker, stands on its heels near the prompter's
box, listening and swelling its voice. It is so ridicu-
lous that I am amazed that people do not burst out
laughing at the very first scene of a tragedy. It takes
long habit to bear with such a spectacle. So whatever
differs in the least from a certain number of conven-

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THEQPHILE DE VIAU

tional situations and speeches strikes one as strange
and abnormal ; hence innovations on the stage are
more difficult and more dangerous than anywhere
else ; a novel scene almost always insures the fail-
ure of a play, while there is no instance of a com-
monplace situation having prevented success. In
every literary renovation the drama is always the last
form touched upon. The ode leads the procession,
giving its hand to the poem, its younger brother;
then comes the novel. The drama drags itself un-
steadily, non pedibus cequ'is^ some distance behind the
latter, which turns around occasionally to see if it is
following, and which stops to wait for it if it is too
far away. The ode is the commencement of ever>'-
thing ; it is thought. Drama is the end of everything;
it is action. The one is mind, the other matter.
The ode is music without a libretto ; the poem is
music with a libretto ; the novel is the libretto alone,
and the drama is the materialisation of the libretto
with the help of painted canvas, costumes, and foot-
lights. It is only when a society grows old that it
acquires a drama. In its decrepitude, when it can-
not bear with even the small amount of ideas which
the drama contains, it turns to the circus ; after the

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THE GROTESQUES

play-actors come the gladiators, after the ranting of
Melpomene the roar of wild beasts ; for very extreme
civilisation substitutes matter for spirit, and the thing
for the idea. In the early days of the drama Thera-
menes came on mournfully to narrate the death of
Hippolytus ; to-day Hippolytus would die on the stage.
Ere long a real wild-beast will really devour an un-
fortunate hero for the sake of greater realism and the
greater satisfaction of the public.

Like all highly wrought natures, Theophile gave him-
self up to the pursuit of pleasure with an ardour which
was no doubt excusable, but which caused him much
sorrow later on. Not that I believe everything that has
been said about him ; I am of opinion that he was
imprudent as much as anything else ; that on the
whole he was neither better nor worse, so far as
morals go, than the young courtiers he frequented,
and that he led the same sort of life led by all poets
of the day who were received in the houses of great
lords. As for his verse, at least that which he ac-
knowledged and signed, it is certainly as chaste, if not
more so, as the chastest verse of the chastest poet of
that day. He loved good living, he says so himself;
but that is not a sufficient reason for banishing a man

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

from the jealm, still less for burning him in effigy.
He speaks on this matter with noble frankness : —

** I care more deeply for study and good living than for
anything else. Books have sometimes tired me but they have
never dazed me, and wine has often cheered but never intoxi-
cated me. Indulgence in wine and women was nearly fatal
to me on leaving school, for my somewhat impulsive nature
had got beyond the rule of my teachers at a time when my
morals still needed discipline. My companions were older
than I, but did not enjoy so much freedom. The liberty
which I enjoyed after the discipHne of the schools was very
dangerous to my soul. I was about to plunge into vice,
which offered itself favourably enough to my young fancy,
but the crosses of my lot turned my incHnation elsewhere,
and the ups and downs of my Hfe did not give voluptuous-
ness time to destroy me. Since then, little by little, my
most libertine desires have died down as my blood grew
cooler, and their violence diminishing every day with ad-
vancing age, I may hope henceforth for assured tranquillity.
I am no longer so fond of banquets and dances, and indulge
in the most secret voluptuousness with much restraint."
("Fragment," chap, ii.)

" As for the licentiousness of life which you desire to
charge with the corruption of youth, I swear to you that,
since I have been at court and have lived in Paris, I have
known no youths that were not more corrupt than J, and
that having discovered their vice, I did not long keep com-

THE GROTESQUES

pany with them. I am not bound to instruct them save by my
example ; those who have charge of them are answerable for
their debaucheries, and not I who am neither tutor nor school-
master to any one."

His liberty and freedom of speech gained him
numerous and powerful enemies. Besides, he was a
Calvinist, and did not speak with due respect of the
Jesuits. At the court of a bigoted king like Louis
XIII this fact was sufficient to involve disfavour, so
an order was obtained from the king, obliging Theo-
phile to leave the kingdom within the least possible
time, — an order brought to him in the month of May,
1619, by the captain of the watch.

He went to London and sought to be presented to
King James I, but it seems that the latter, prejudiced
against the poet, would not allow it. To console him-
self Theophile wrote the following : —

" If James, the learned King, would not see me, it was
because, delighted with my wit, he thought me a spirit and
consequently invisible."

The ode which he addressed to King Louis XIII is
perfect in rhythm and taste. It begins thus : —

** He Who hurls the thunderbolt. Who rules the elements.
Who moves with mighty quaking the great globe of the uni-

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

verse, God, Who placed the sceptre in your hand and may
from you remove it to-morrow ; He Who lends you His
light and, spite of your lilies, one day shall turn to dust your
buried limbs ; that great God Who opened the abysses in the
centre of the universe and keeps them ever gaping for the
punishment of crime, has willed that innocent man should
find refuge under the shadow of His mighty wing. He will
not be angered if you stay the deluge of ills wherein you have
cast me. Far away from the banks of the Seine and the
pleasant air of the court, it seems to me as though the sun
shines but dimly now. Upon the dreadful summit of a rock,
which even bears dare not approach, I consult the Furies,
which ever seek to impel my importunate thoughts to make
me dash myself down. Amid barbarians where I find none
to whom I can speak, my sad accents are lost in the air and
on the echoing shore. Instead of the splendour of Paris,
where the people with loud acclaim bless the King as he
passes by, I hear the croaking of crows, and the thunder in
the clouds speaks to me only of the dead."

It recalls, does it not ? Ovid exiled to Scythia. The
country described by the poet seems to be Kamschatka
or Scythia, rather than good old England, where stout
is extra and beef more underdone than elsewhere ; even
John Bull in 1619 could not possibly look as glum as
he is described. But in those days there was but one
country in the world for a Frenchman, and that was

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THE GROTESQUES

France ; and it was Paris only that was the real
France, — Paris and the court. The expression
which Theophile uses is more accurate than seems at
first sight, when he speaks of " the gentle air of
the court." In truth, to the nobility the court was
a peculiar country, a special climate created for it,
an atmosphere out of which it could not live any
more than fishes can live out of water. To see the
King was more necessary to the courtier than to see
the sun. His whole life was spent in watching for a
glance from the sovereign; a remark from His
Majesty delighted him. What does the King do ?
Where is the King ? Does the King seem to be
in a good or a bad temper ? The time is drawing
near when Louis XIV shall say with truth, " I am
the State." All the nobles so busily, so eagerly buzz-
ing around the throne, the courtiers who die of despair
because they have been snubbed, who go crazy with
delight because they have been smiled upon, are
already vaguely and unconsciously feeling this great
truth, Richelieu, who is about to appear, will strike
with his blood-imbrued hands the last blow at the
great trunk of feudalism. By destroying the high
aristocracv the Cardinal-minister prepares the way for

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

the Revolution of 1793. After him there are no
more great lords, great feudal barons fighting the
King, and almost kings themselves on their own
lands. " With his experienced hands he kills the lord-
ships in their battlemented eyries." He completes
the work begun by Louis XI, the sovereign who, next
to him, the Cardinal-King (for Louis XIII was a
mere figurehead), did most harm to monarchy while
appearing to consolidate it.

There are no more great lords, there are courtiers
only. The King stands alone, on a high pedestal,
and, at the first glance, he appears great, but his very
elevation and isolation make him the butt of all
attacks; he is too high; there is a gulf between the
people and himself. There is no class regal enough
to be really royalist ; the King's interests are no one
else's interests, and no one will defend him against his
people, not even the courtiers, who consider him
merely as a distributor of pensions, and not as a man
with whom they can make common cause.

The works of Theophile are full of regrets that he
was so unfortunate as no longer to belong to the court,
no longer to be admitted to the King's coucher^ and,
Heaven forgive me ! he is more concerned about that

THE GROTESQUES

than about the risk of being burned alive. Not that
our poet is servile, — his freedom of speech nearly cost
him dear, — but he felt the influence of his time, an
influence which the strongest minds can with difiiculty
resist. We have insisted on this point because the
need of being patronised on the one hand, and of
paying court on the other, is one of the characteristics
of writers and poets, even down to a period not very
distant from our own, but which, so different is it,
seems separated from it by a full two thousand years.
Kings and princes were the first patrons, then great
lords and literary ladies, then farmers-general and
operatic singers. It became just as necessary to have
one's poet as to have a monkey or a china man-
darin ; so true is it that the human mind is essen-
tially progressive.

Theophile, having been recalled to court, overflowed
with joy and delight. He rimed a small poem, per-
fectly innocent in our opinion, but which struck the
Reverend Father Garassus as monstrous : —

" I am very well, brother, and my muse is troubled by

naught. I have lost my profane temper, I am admitted to

the King's coucher, and Phoebus every day in my home has

double mantles of plush. My soul braves fate. Every day
_

THEQPHILE DE VIAU

I feast. My room is about to be hung with tapestry. Every
day to me is a Shrove-Tuesday, and I refuse to drink hippo-
eras unless it is made with amber."

Garassus discovers in that expression, " my soul
braves fate," and in one of the stanzas of the " Ode
to King Louis XIII," in which Theophile compares
him to Jove, flagrant proofs of atheism ; and therefore
pours out upon him a torrent of insults which would
be very amusing, especially coming from a theologian,
did not one remember that they nearly caused the
death of the poet. The brother to whom he alludes
in the poem quoted above was called Paul. He
thanks him repeatedly for his kind friendship and
the help which he sent him while in prison.

We have said that Theophile was a Huguenot, and
that this was one of the reasons why he was perse-
cuted. Not that he was a fierce and intolerant one,
for he behaved with much sense and reserve on an
occasion upon which a companion less reasonable than
he got himself into serious trouble. He thus relates
the adventure : —

" As we were proceeding towards the Quay Gate, we met
at the corner of a lane the Holy Sacrament, which a priest
was carrying to a sick man. The ceremony rather surprised
_

THE GROTESQUES

us, for we were both Huguenots, Clitiphon and I, but his
protestantism was of the most uncompromising kind, as he
most unseasonably showed on this occasion ; for everybody
kneeling in honour of the sacred mystery, I drew close up to
the house, bareheaded, and bowing somewhat, as a mark of
respect which I thought due to a settled custom and to the
Prince's religion (God had not then done me the grace to
receive me into His Church). Clitiphon proceeded insult-
ingly to traverse the street in which every one was kneeling,
without condescending to anything approaching a bow. A
common man, as is often the case with such people, who
through blind zeal are more easily moved to anger than
pity, sprang at Clitiphon's head, knocked off his hat, and
then took to shouting, 'O Calvinist ! ' "

So moderate a Huguenot was not far from becoming
a Catholic, and as a matter of fact he did abjure his
religion, perhaps through sincere conviction ; but it
may be conjectured that he hoped thus to protect him-
self against the malignity of his enemies. He was
mistaken, however, for he was persecuted as fiercely
as ever. He had received instruction in the Roman
faith at the lectures of Father Athanasius Arnoux and
Father Seguerand. An atheist, such as he was accused
of being, would not have cared enough about his salva-
tion to change his religion. The hatred of the clergy

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THEOPHILE DE VIAU

sticks as fast as the stain of oil ; to remove it you have
got to cut oat the piece ; and the abuse of f'ather
Garassus overflows into a big quarto volume.

"Here," said Theophile, "is another flood of insult, in
which he froths at the mouth more fiercely still. He calls
me atheist and corrupter of youth, and charges me with
indulging in the practice of all imaginable vices. As regards
the accusation of atheism, I reply that I have not published,
as he and Lucilio Vanino (a professor of theology who was
burned alive) have done, the maxims of impious men, which
have been equal to so many lessons in atheism (for they have
both refuted them, and at the end of their discussion they
leave a weak mind very ill instructed in its religion). But
without claiming to be a scholar in theological matters, I am
satisfied, with the apostle, to know Jesus Christ crucified, and
when my reason fails in the presence of such a mystery, I
have recourse to the authority of the Church, and believe
fully whatever she believes. As to my soul's health, I am so
well satisfied with the grace of God that my mind declares
itself incapable of not knowing its Creator. I adore and love
Him with all the strength of my mind, and I feel deeply the
obliganons I am under to Him. As regards my conduct out-
wardly, in my rule of life I am privately and publicly a
professing Roman Catholic Christian ; I go to mass and
confession, and I communicate. Father Seguerand, Father
Athanasius, Father Aubigny can tesdfy to that. I fast on
fast days, and last Lent, being pressed by an illness to which

THE GROTESQUES

the physicians were about to abandon me because of my
obstinacy in refusing to eat meat, I was constrained to have
recourse to a dispensation lest I should be guilty of causing
my own death. Father Rogueneau, my parish priest, and
Dr. de Lorme, who signed the certificate, are irreproach-
able witnesses of the truth of this statement. I do not bring
up these facts through hypocritical vanity, but because com-
pelled, as a wretched man accused, to publish my devo-
tion only to make my innocence plain."

Undoubtedly many a devotee of the present time
does not fulfil his religious duties as carefully as an
atheist in those days.

" The Satirical Parnassus," a collection of licen-
tious verse which had just appeared under the name
of Theophile and which was, as a matter of fact,
merely a selection of such poems as imitators of Ron-
sard called gaieties^ by different poets such as Colletet,
de PVenide, Motin, Ogier, and others, served as a
pretext for these various attacks, although Theophile
had disavowed the work, and even caused the book to
be seized and had suit brought against the printers,
who, being confronted with him during his trial, de-
clared they did not know him and had never had any-
thing to do with him. " The Satirical Parnassus "
bears the date of 1622. It is a curious literary monu-

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

ment in its^ way, this work. There is a very great
difference between it and the filthy poems of Ferrand,
Doret, Voisenon, and other frequenters of ladies' rooms,
whether musketeers or abbes. It is as great a contrast
as a head by Caravaggio, black with bitumen, by the
side of a pastel by Latour, glowing with carmine, or
a basso-relievo upon an antique vase by the side of
one of Maurin's lithographs. Certainly such produc-
tions are unworthy of art, yet there is enough art left
in them to cause one to regret seeing them burned,
and to induce one to pull out a few leaves which have
escaped the executioner's fire of straw ; somewhat like
that erotic museum at Naples, and beautiful statues,
which no one has had the courage to break, but over
which morality is obliged to draw a curtain.

What a wonderful time that sixteenth century was !
For Theophile and the society in which he moves
belong to the sixteenth rather than to the seventeenth
century, though they had lived somewhat in the latter.
It was a fertile, rich, abundant age, full of life and
activity. It is wonderful even in its turpitude. How
small we are by the side of those great people ! Thcv
know Greek and Hebrew; their cooks speak Latin
fluently ; theology, archaeology, astrology, occult

4; 4; 4; 4; 4; 4; 4. 4, 4:^1: 4:4.4.4,4:4. 4,4; 4:0:4: 4. 4.4.

THE GROTESQUES

sciences, they study deeply every one ; they know all
that exists, and even what does not exist. They take
large bites of the fruits of the tree of knowledge, and
they produce folio after folio ; a quarto volume gives
them less trouble than a duodecimo does to us. The
painters and sculptors cover acres of canvas with
masterpieces, and mould whole armies of statues.
Men fight with swords which we can scarcely hold,
in armour which would bring us to our knees. It is a
time of theological quarrels, of riots, of duels, of rapes,
of perilous adventures, of gross feasts in taverns ; of
sonnets in the Italian mode, of Greek madrigals upon
a flea, of learned scholiae en obscure passages; of
wildest debauches of great ladies or women of the
middle class ; an incredible variety, an unimaginable
chaos. Blood and wine flow as freely the one as the
other. Insults are exchanged in excellent Latin, men
are burned alive, every girl is kissed, every dish is
eaten. And such dishes — regular mountains of meat !
Glasses are drained, and what glasses ! It would take
the contents of three of our bottles to fill them, and
they are to our little goblets what the folio volumes
of that day are to our octavos of to-day. What kind
of ribs had those fellows around their hearts, that thev

THEQPHILE DE VIAU

could stand such work, such lovemaking, such de-
bauch ? What had their mothers made them of?
Were the nights in which they were forged forty-eight
hours long like that in which Hercules was conceived ?
Ah, wizened wretches that we are ! Wretched
drunkards, miserable debauchees, paltry lovers, mean
writers, contemptible duellists, — we who roll under
the table at our fourth bottle, who turn pale after three
or four wakeful nights, who fall into a consumption
because we have had three or four mistresses, who rest
for a fortnight after writing a hundred lines, and who
fight only when some one seduces our wife ! Oh,
how greatly have men degenerated since the days of
Homerus the rhapsode!

Fathers Voisin, Garassus, Guerin, and Renard
brought a joint charge against Theophiie. Father
Voisin, who had some influence with Cardinal de la
Rochefoucauld, suborned witnesses, and, with the help
of Father Caussin, a Jesuit, and confessor to the King,
obtained an order of arrest against de Viau.

Theophiie, seeing so many enemies leagued against
him, took to flight, — slowly, however, to see how the
matter would turn out. He was tried and condemned
by the High Court, as guilty of divine lese-majeste^ to

89 ■

THE GROTESQUES

make honourable amends on the square of Notre Dame,
and then to be burned alive on the Place de Greve.
The sentence was pronounced on August 19, 1623;
the execution was carried out in effigy. Theophile,
wandering from one retreat to another, was arrested
on the 27th of the following September and carried
to the Conciergerie, where he was imprisoned in the
Montgomery Tower and endured every imaginable
suffering. Let Theophile himself relate them : —

•' After five or six months of error, uncertain in what part
of the world I might still the terrors of my wandering
wretchedness, an incredible piece of treachery caused me to be
taken to prison from the place where I had sought asylum.
My protector was transformed into an officer of the law.
Heavens, how difficult it is to struggle against wealth ! A
note from a monk, respected as much as letters patent, caused
the bearer of the wandering muse to be watched in so many
a place that at last two wicked provosts, both accomplished
thieves and very devout, praying as if they were apostles, laid
their hands upon my collar, and while saying their pater
noster, robbed even my valet. Dazzled somewhat by the
splendour of my appearance, they wondered whether I were
not a counterfeiter. They questioned me as to the value
of the doubloons they had taken from me, which did not
bear the stamp of France, Then I trembled, fearing lest
their ignorance should judge me according to their lights.

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

They could not fancy, without suspecting many a crime,
that a mere maker of rimes should prove to be so fine a prcv,
and though the gold was fair and sound, both by light of day
and by candle light, they believed, seeing that I was in trouble,
no matter how much they took from me, that these coins were
leaves of oak bearing the stamp of the witches' sabbath.
Without points, lace, garters, or gloves, in the centre of ten
halberdiers, I flattered the arrogant rascals that had been given
to me for guards ; but all the same, laden with fetters, I was
thrown into the hell of a deep, black hole in which one has
naught but scanty exhalations of foul air, and the cold slime of
a damp and sticky old wall. Within this common place of
tears wherein I beheld myself, so wretched, the very assassins
and thieves had more convenient cellso Every one said of
me that I knew no faith nor law ; that there was no vice
in which I had not indulged, and whatever I did write was
worse than any murder ; that a holy man of much wit, a
child of the blessed Ignatius, said both in his sermons and
his books that I was dead through contumacy ; that I had
run away only through fear of being executed as my effigy
had been ; that I was naught but a suborner, and that I
taught magic arts within taverns of ill- fame ; that the springs
had been wound up of the black and powerful machine whose
supple and vast body extends its arms as far as China ; that in
France and in foreign lands they had the means of avenging
themselves and of forging a thunderbolt the stroke of which
would be fatal to me, even if it cost more powder than was

THE GROTESQUES

lost at Vital. ... As soon as I reached Paris, I understood
by the confused rumour that all was ready to cook me alive,
and I had reason to wonder whether these people were going
to take me to the Greve or to prison. Here, then, as in a
tomb, overborne by the peril in which I dream, alone and
without a light, ever fearing execution, by the help of a little
faint light which pierces somewhat this dark tower, where the
executioners are ever watching — great King, the honour of the
universe, I present you with the petition of this poor rimester.
Did I practise the vilest trade that is practised on the streets,
were I the son of cobbler or of codfish vender, it might be
feared that an angry people, in order to punish the attempt of
him who persecutes me, should do seditiously what its fury
carries out in its blind emotion. Within this place, conse-
crated to misfortune, the sun, contrary to its nature, has less
light and warmth than it has in paintings. The sky can scarce
ever be seen ; nor light nor fire is here beheld. The air we
breathe is deadly and everything is icy cold, so thoroughly is
it the place where the living are dead. As Alcides overcame
death when he compelled it to let Theseus go, you with less
effort shall do a greater and easier thing. Sign the order to
set me free. Then with three fingers only you will strike
down two and twenty gates, and break the iron bars of three
gratings which are stronger than all the gratings in hell."

And he thus speaks in an apology addressed to the
king : —

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

♦' A man who professes to be a monk and who has taken
all the vows, took on himself to correct your clemency and,
emboldened by my timidity, ventured to set the snares which
now he is caught in. A provost of the constabulary, called
Leblanc, his intimate confidant, was devoted to him. The
latter took such good care to be complaisant to him in this
commission that a place which can stand a royal siege proved
too weak to protect me. This monk, whom this officer of
justice obeyed so docilely, and who found the governor of your
citadel so easy to handle, is. Sire, Father Voisin, a Jesuit,
who, through unruly fancy and most scandalous caprice, is
determined to avenge a wrong which was not done him, and
has imagined subjects of offence in order to have a pretext to
hate me. His mind has gone astray, and he is very ignorant
of mine. He has instilled in weak souls a false opinion of mv
manners and my conscience, and, prostituting authority by his
address and the extravagance of his passion, has published
broadcast all those infamous accusations for which to-day he
is in penitence. He entered every place of his acquaintances
and kind to scatter there the evil smell which had made my
reputation so odious. He suborned the zeal of a foolish
Father, who vomited a whole volume to free his companion's
bile. It is the author of the ' Curious Doctrine.'

"Thus did this man pour out his profanations, trusting to
public ignorance. Another proclaimed in the pulpit with
much shouting, * Read the Reverend Father Garassus ! I
tell vou to read him. It is an excellent book.' And as soon

THE GROTESQUES

as I was brought to this town, he adorned one of his sermons
with these pretty remarks: 'Accursed be you, Theophile,
and accursed be the spirit which dictated your thoughts !
Accursed the hand which wrote them ! Woe to the book-
seller who printed them; woe to those who read them!
Woe to those who have ever known you. And blessed be
the chief justice and the attorney-general who have purged
Paris of the pest that you are. It is you who have caused
the plague to be in Paris. I shall repeat, with Reverend
Father Garassus, that you are an ass, that you are a calf. A
calf, do I say ? But a calf's flesh is good when boiled,
a calf's flesh is good when roasted, with a calf's skin are
books bound ; but you, wicked man, are only fit to be burned,
and burned you shall be to-morrow. You have turned the
monks into ridicule, and the monks shall laugh at you.'"

This is indeed a fine torrent of eloquence j this is a
fine sally on the part of Jean Guerin !

The whole quarto volume of Father Garassus, for
it is a quarto volume, is written in this style. It is a
strange book. He insults, at one and the same time,
Theophile, Luther, and a certain Lucilio Vanino. He
accuses them of gluttony and atheism ; he calls The-
ophile a poetaster, a rascal, a filthy parasite, a drunkard ;
he calls Luther a big German bull, a big gormandiser,
who can only eat and drink, whose soul is fleshly, and

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

who could not fast a day but that he would think him-
self dead ; he calls Lucilio Vanino a corrupter of youth,
a naturalist, and an atheist. He shows wherein athe-
ists are like griffins, which are a compound of mouth
and belly, and like crocodiles ; though there is this dif-
ference, that the griffins eat once in forty days, which
has never happened to atheists, who eat forty times a
day. How they go into taverns of ill-fame to dine, at
two pistoles a head, with young nobles whose material
shadows they are ; how they may well be called cater-
pillars at the dinner hour, because they have innumer-
able feet like caterpillars to reach a table, and they live
more on dishes than caterpillars do on trees ; how they
are only fit to produce verses before and worms after
their death, and how the worst of the latter are not
those which swarm in their putrid bodies ; how if they
did not rime sonnets and nonsense for the prostitutes
kept by the sons of good families, they would run great
risk of starving wretchedly and would be reduced to
swallowing their slime like caged snails; and finally
how they are, at one and the same time, asses, wolves,
dogs, and black beetles : asses, because of their stupidity
and the bacchanalian songs which it is their habit
to shout at the Pine Cone and at the tavern of the

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THE GROTESQUES

Wooded Isle ; wolves, because they are ferocious, and
like wolves have a stiff backbone which refuses to
bend when a procession passes by ; dogs, because they
are shameless and they wear their plumes as dogs carry
their tails, sticking up ; black beetles, because they
are always grubbing and rubbing their noses in filth
and carry as these do a ball of filth which is their half-
digested meat, with which they fill their damned guts
on fast days and during Lent.

There are politeness and nice expressions for you ;
and yet it is quite in the usual tone of controversy
between scholars in the sixteenth century. The
answers of Theophile form an exceedingly rare ex-
ception, inasmuch as they are masterpieces of decency
and good language. His moderation is all the more
striking in comparison with that mad fury, and every
decent person is bound to take his side. All the same.
Parliament took two whole years to review his case.
These two years were spent by him in almost incred-
ible suffering. His cell was dark and damp. It was
the cell which had been thought worthy, a few years
before, to hold Ravaillac the regicide. Nothing more
need be said.

The sentence against him was commuted to simple

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

banishment. , He withdrew to Chantilly, the seat of
the Duke of Montmorency, who had always been his
protector and who was scarce more fortunate than his
protege, for, after having won several battles, he died
on the scaffold. It was in this retreat that Theophile
composed in honour of the duchess the poem entitled
" Sylvia's Grove." The grove still bears that name.

Theophile did not long enjoy his freedom. Priva-
tions, troubles, excesses both of work and of debauch,
suffering of all kinds, had seriously impaired his con-
stitution, which was naturally robust. He fell ill and
never recovered. A few minutes before his death he
earnestly begged his friend Mayret to give him a red
herring. Mayret refused, fearing that it would hurt
de Viau, and all his life he reproached himself with not
having indulged that last fancy of a man whom he had
deeply loved. This was in the year 1626, and The-
ophile was only thirty-six years old. When all he
accomplished in his busy and unfortunate life is taken
into account, it is difficult to imagine how high he
might not have risen, had Heaven been kind to him,
and had he lived as long as his robust body, inured to
fatigue, seemed to make it likely.

So far we have spoken only of his physical life.

7 97

THE GROTESQUES

We shall now examine his mental life, his poetic sys-
tem, his prosody, and the nature of his defects and
qualities. We shall consider him in his relation to the
other poets of the times, and chiefly to Malherbe ; for,
as we have already said, Theophile is really a great
poet, and his influence, although unseen and unex-
plained, is yet very marked upon contemporary liter-
ature. It is quite a surprise to meet in Theophile's
writings with ideas which struck the public some ten
or twelve years ago as being audaciously novel ; for it
is he — we are bound to say it — who initiated the
Romanticist movement.

We have said that Theophile de Viau was a great
poet ; the fragments that I have cited above prove that
he was a no less great prose writer ; that his feet were
as good as his wings, and that he walked as well as
he flew. That is the poet's privilege ; when he ex-
changes the language of the gods for that of men,
he speaks the one as perfectly as the other. Prose
writers, on the contrary, cannot write half a dozen
verses. Birds can light on the ground and walk on it
like quadrupeds, but quadrupeds however rapid their
speed, cannot spring into the air and fly like birds.
This is a fact which could easily be proved, and which

98 ■

IHEOPHILE DE VIAU

might give rise to very interesting investigations, but it
would lead us too far, and we shall perhaps take it up
some other day. The fact remains that the prose of
Theophile is as fine as that of any other writer. It is
full of the spleijdid Castilian forms of expression, of
the well-bred terms which give to the prose of that day
such a rich and imposing appearance. The style is
thoroughly artistic, and is unquestionably that of the
best society. The broad effects produced by the sen-
tences recall the great stiff folds of rich old stuffs
embroidered all over with gold and silver. You never
see a word trip on itself and fall flat in the very middle
of a sentence, as a countess born in low estate trips
upon her train and falls. In all his prose writings
there is a certain familiarity full of good taste. The
tone is that of a nobleman accustomed to his station ;
it has an indefinable perfume of high aristocracy, the
charm of which is inexpressible. The reader feels that
he can proceed in perfect safety ; he will meet with
no expression which is not well received at court and
approved of the King. The secret of that style will
never be discovered until men again take to wearing
swords, and feathers in their hats ; not the small-sword
of whale-bone in a velvet sheath worn by the mar-

THE GROTESQUES

quesses of Crebillon, nor the three-cornered hat edged
with white feathers, but the great steel rapier and
pointed felt hat of the blades, with its red plume.
BufFon's lace cuffs show to poor advantage by the side
of the slashed and lined sleeves of the fashionable men
of that day. What can be more charmingly written,
wittier and more delightful in every respect than the
page we transcribe below, and which is the more inter-
esting because it is in a certain sense an express pro-
fession of literary faith on the part of our poet !

Our own writers are usually elegant somewhat in
this fashion, thanks to the ignorance of the public and
the vanity of bookmakers : —

** The golden and azure dawn, embroidered with pearls
and rubies, now showed at the gates of the Orient. The
stars, dazzled by the brighter light, paled their whiteness, and
little by little turned into the colour of the sky. The animals,
which had been hunting, retraced their steps into the forest,
and men were going back to their work. Silence was re-
placed by noise, and darkness by light," etc.

Composition must be close, the meaning must be
naturally and easily seen, the language accurate and
significant. Affected ornaments are merely the product
of loose writing and artifice, and always involve effort

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

and unintelligibility. The ornaments which are no
longer to our taste, and which are called imitations of
the authors of antiquity, should be called thefts.

" Men ought to write in modern fashion. Demosthenes
and Virgil did not write in our day, and we cannot write as
they did in theirs. Their boolcs, when they composed them,
were new ; we are composing old works every day. It is
profane and ridiculous in us to call upon the Muses after the
fashion of these pagans. Ronsard's vigour of mind and pure
imaginadon are comparable in innumerable ways to the splen-
dour of the old Greeks and Ladns, and he came nearer to
them than when he set to translate them, or when he took
that Cytherean ' Gatarus, by whom the Tymbrean tripod — '

" He apparendy strives after incomprehensibility in order
to appear learned, and seeks the sham reputation of being a
new and bold writer. He is unintelligible to Frenchmen
when he uses these foreign terms. Such extravagance simply
disgusts scholars and stupefies the weak. Some call this fashion
of using obscure and inappropriate epithets barbarism and lack
of culture, others call it conceit and pedantry. For myself, I
believe it is due to the respect and admiradon Ronsard enter-
tained for the ancient writers, thinking whatever he found in
them excellent, and seeking glory by constant imitation of them.
I am aware that a prelate who is a good man may be imitated
by every one. One has to be chaste and charitable as he is,
and learned, if that be possible ; but a courtier, in order to
imitate his virtues, would in vain live or dress in that fashion.

THE GROTESQUES

One must write a good description, as Homer did, but not by
making use of his expressions and his epithets ; we must write as
he wrote, but not what he wrote. It is a praiseworthy devo-
tion, worthy of a lofty soul, to invoke the sovereign powers at
the beginning of a work, but Christians have nothing to do
with Apollo and the Muses, and our modern verse, which is
no longer sung to the accompaniment of the lyre, should not,
therefore, be called lyric, any more than other verses of ours
should be termed heroic, since we no longer live in heroic
times. All this nonsense can neither please nor profit an intel-
ligent person. It is true that distaste for these superfluities has
given rise to another fault ; for weaker minds, which the attrac-
tion of booty induced to take up the profession of poet, through
the care they took to avoid worn-out commonplaces already
repeated for so many centuries, found themselves on barren
ground, and not being naturally strong or skilful enough to
make use of the objects which offered themselves to their
imagination, they came to the conclusion that there was naught
in poetry but material for prose, and became persuaded that
figures do not belong to poetry, and that a metaphor is an
extravagance."

These lines were written at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, but in truth one might think they
had been drawn from the preface of some Romantic
work which appeared but yesterday. It proves that
the antagonism between the two principles has existed

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

at all times^ and that the periwig is not a modern
invention, but exists since the creation of the world.
In the seventeenth, as in the sixteenth century, we
shall still come upon routine, which insists upon
governing expression with its heavy ruler, and which
evolves recipes to_ enable a poet to be at will
Pindaric, elegiac, or heroic. It is the great quarrel
between the ancients and the moderns, which began
with Ronsard and is not yet ended. For Ronsard —
whose fame had been so long and so much contemned
and despised, and has been restored by the Romanticists
through a sort of contradiction, which, however, is not
quite illogical — Is unquestionably the man who intro-
duced Classicism into France. He broke violently
with the good old Gallic spirit of which Clement Marot
was the last representative. It is poor Ronsard, the
nobleman of Vendome, and none else, who let in the
choir of the Muses of antiquity, and who presented
them at court dressed in a costume half Greek, half
Gallic. He exchanged the chant royal, the rondeau,
and all the national forms of our poetry for the strophe
and the anti-strophe, the epode, and the Greek and
Latin forms. He has foreign, barbarous expressions
after the fashion of those you have just read, and very

103

THE GROTESQUES

many more besides. He has invented double-faced
words, deformed imitations of Janus, which grammar
cannot behold without terror, and of which Du Bartas
made such an astounding abuse. He has syncopated
verbs; he has thinned out into diminutives, after the
antique mode, numbers of words which appear greatly
surprised at the tail of prettinesses which have been
most improperly stuck on behind them. All this is
true, no doubt ; but, on the other hand, he has imparted
to our poetic verse a full and sonorous harmony, a
virile, robust accent unknown before him. He has
drawn the muscles and made the bones to be felt under
the soft, pasty forms of the old idiom. He made the
French Muse, already pretty old to be indulging in
prettinesses and artless speeches in the puerile style of
the trouveres and the minstrels, speak a tongue more
suitable to her. Through the thick layer of pedantry,
of obsolescence, shines out a touch of incomparable
freshness and brightness. Behind his mythological
figures there are landscape backgrounds brought out
with inimitable feeling for nature. His muse, though
draped after the Greek fashion, breathes a melancholy
wholly modern in character. His sonnets have a
tender grace which recalls the elegies of Tibullus and

104

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

of Propertius ; but he is thoroughly Gallic at bottom,
in spite of the rags which he goes picking up here and
there among his authors, and his style, in spite of its
efflorescence of Greek and Latin, clings sturdily to the
robust trunk of the old idiom and draws all its sap from
it. The vesture is different, but the body is the same.
His "Discourses in Verse" contain many a passage
which might have been written by the bronze pen of
the great Pierre Corneille. A pedant he may be, but
he is unquestionably a poet, and all poets in France
since the sixteenth century descend in a direct line from
him. Mathurin Regnier openly confessed himself
his pupil, and what a poet must be that man whom
Regnier, admirable himself, proclaims to be admirable.
Corneille uses no other style than Ronsard's when he
writes a political tirade, and considers the mould used
by Ronsard solid enough to pour into it his adamantine
verse. Moliere makes use of his overlaps, of his shift-
ing caesura, and does not think, though so long a time
has elapsed, that the methods of Ronsard have become
obsolete. La Fontaine is connected with him through
the numerous archaic and idiomatic expressions which
impart so much savour and grace to his style, which is
so French that it becomes Gallic. Leaving aside
105

THE GROTESQUES

Ronsard's own contemporaries such as Remi Belleau,
Antoine Baif, Amadys Jamin, and others, very worthy
poets, such as Theophile, Saint-Amant, etc., have felt
his mighty influence, and have reflected some of the
beams of that magnificent sun of poesy which he caused
to shine upon France.

Some time after he appeared there arose another
school, an envious, unproductive school, a sorter out of
words and a weigher of syllables, a school of gram-
marians opposed to a school of poets, as is always the
case, which set about revising, stanza by stanza and
comma by comma, all the verses of the Pleiad and to
treat its stars most insolently. Its schoolmaster was
that dry, tough, fibrous Malherbe, about whom Nicolas
Despreaux Boileau, a writer of the same kidney, wrote
the following superlatively triumphant lines which
contain nearly as many mistakes as they do syl-
lables : —

"At last Malherbe came, and, the first in France, imparted
to verse a cadence just ; of a word rightly placed the power
did show, and trained the Muse to laws of duty. By this
wise writer the tongue improved, no longer shocked the ear
refined ; with grace the stanzas learned to flow, and line into
line no longer ran."

io6

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

I am of opinion, notwithstanding the belief of the
author of the " Ode on the Taking of Namur," that
words were put in their right places even before the
advent of Master Francois de Malherbe. As to the
" cadence just," I have not ascertained that up to that
time verse lacked rhythm ; as for the stanzas which
learned to flow gracefully, I consider for my part that
the stanzas of Ronsard, the greatest lyric inventor that
ever was, are turned with as much grace as those of
that far from Pindaric ode, " Will you credit it, ye
future generations ? " and I do not think, unworthy
Romanticist that I am, that the suppression of the
overlap has been a very great blessing, but rather the
opposite.

Malherbe, the least poetic mind that ever existed, is
in verse a very close copy of what Balzac was in prose.
He is full of the same narrow, fruitless purism, of the
same syntactical minutiae, and lacks to an equal degree
both ideas and feeling. In Balzac's letters, as in Mal-
herbe's verse, all is small, symmetrical, stunted ; the
sobriety of style is carried to the extent of mean-
ness ; there is no abundant breadth and fulness. The
dress in which their ideas are clothed is too scant for
them, and it has to be pulled down with both hands

107

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THE GROTESQUES

to make it reach the feet. The striving after the
suitable and polite expression often degenerates into
preciosity ; the unskilful richness of the rime brings
around at the end of each line the same assonance.
They are marvels second to none else, the finest in
the world, expressions admirable unquestionably and
of the finest art, worthy in every respect of the poets
of the " Selected Pieces," but their repetition at length
becomes wearisome. It is of no use to look for
metaphors, figures, feeling, — for whatever, in a word,
is poesy ; for poesy is a closed book to them ; they
have not the least conception of what it is, and pro-
fess for it a contempt which strikes one as very pe-
culiar. Malherbe could not rest until he had robbed
the tongue upon which he worked of all its colouring
matter, by dint of filtering it through syntax. He
acted as a chemist might who should leave within his
retort naught but the colourless and tasteless residue of
a rich wine. Others followed him and again passed
through a thicker filter the clarified liquor which he
had obtained, so that, so far as poetry is concerned,
the result was a language as transparent as crystal,
and as cold and hard also, no doubt wonderfully well
fitted for writers of treatises on mathematics. Jean-

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

Baptiste Rousseau, our first lyric poet, as he is called,
descends directly from Malherbe, and a pretty poor
product he is. So when real poets did come, they
were obliged to go back abruptly and at one step to
the sixteenth century in order to find there a poetic
tongue, until they could manage to create one for
themselves.

For the rest, there is nothing on earth comparable
to the insolence and the damned coolness of Mal-
herbe. His answer to Yvrande, Racan, Collomby, and
a (ew others of his friends, about Ronsard, half of
whose poems he had blotted out and the remaining
portion of which he struck out, is well known. His
coarse and brutal reply to Desportes, to whom he
said that his soup was better than his Psalms, and that
he need not take the trouble to go and fetch the latter;
the way in which he treated Pindar, and his preference
for Statius and Seneca, suffice to enable one to judge
of the extent of his good breeding and of the soundness
of his judgment. At the time that Theophile was
being tried, he said that for his part he believed him
innocent, but that if people were to be burned for
writing poor verse, Theophile thoroughly deserved to
go to the stake; and turning to Racan, he added,

109

THE GROTESQUES

" But you run no risk of being accused of being his
accomplice."

Theophile, who speaks of Malherbe in some parts
of his work, judged him very cleverly and wittily ; and
without estimating him above his worth he did him
the kind of justice which in a way he deserves. Here
is what he says of him: —

" I never was conceited enough to take from Malherbe' s
verse the French which that verse taught us."

And elsewhere : —

" Let who will imitate others' marvellous work ; Mal-
herbe did very well, but he worked for himself. Number-
less small thieves are skinning him alive ; as for me, I envy
not such thefts. I quite approve of every one writing in
his own fashion. I approve of his reputation, but not of
his teaching. Those begging writers who lack inspiration
borrow constantly his rimes or his style, and join the gold
and silk of so many fine things which we admire in him
to ugly rags ; thus appearing in our day as ill-conditioned
as of' yore appeared Horace's crow. Thev work for a
whole month seeking how they can rime f/s and Memphis,
Lebanon and turban, and the gloomy rivers often find it diffi-
cult their bounds to know. Their straining makes them
unintelligible ; never once do they clearly see. I know
some who write verse in modern fashion onlv, and who, at

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THEOPHILE DE VIAU

high noon, with lighted lantern seek the sun ; who so scrape
their French that it is torn to bits, and who blame whatever their
taste considers easy. They take a month in learning speech
by touch ; when the accent is harsh or the rime weak, they
strive to make us believe that all they do is fine, and that
their fame will last beyond the tomb, for no other reason
save that they have spent their life in turning out a tiny
piece of work ; that their verse will last, treasured by the
world, because they have grown old in making it, just as
a spider, a clean web spinning, uses up its life for a tran-
sient result."

Boileau may have had this tirade in mind when he
said, —

" In patchwork verse they tear Malherbe to bits."

The lines of Theophile are as sound as they are
witty ; he turns them in clean, easy fashion, and with
irreproachable taste. It is impossible to criticise more
wittily Malherbe's defects, while appearing to attack
his imitators only. Further, he shows us that the
quarrel between writers who work with difficulty and
facile writers, between grammarians and poets, existed
even then. Malherbe had already said that after
writing a discourse of three pages and a poem a hun-
dred lines long, a man should rest for ten years.
Theophile has admirably hit off the disdainful critics

THE GROTESQUES

who " blame whatever their taste considers easy," and
who devote their life to weaving a work which has
no greater strength than a cobweb, and which is none
the better for having taken so much time in the com-
position. Worthy Regnier took upon himself to pen
a companion picture, in which it is difficult to know
which to praise most, the boldness of the sketch or
the warmth of the colouring. It is in his satire ad-
dressed to the poet Rapin, and nothing is wanting to
that apostrophe of old Regnier, not even the word
" art," so much abused now-a-days, and which is
turned to account to hinder those who are real artists.

Theophile, in the quotation given above, criticises
with admirable common sense all the wretched scriv-
eners of fantastic temper who, themselves as impotent
as hornets, think it ill that bees should love flowers
and make honey ; for, properly speaking, figures and
metaphors are the flowers of the garden of poesy,
and he who wants them to be cut away knows noth-
ing of poesy ; the Greek bee has dropped no honey
on his lips. He is fit only to write in poetic prose,
that is, in the worst language known to earth next
to prosaic verse, an inversion which unfortunately is
popular in the days of literary trials In which we live.

•4* •«*• *l'» *!'* •*• •** •s* "^ •»* •^ •=• •=• *=• *=• *=* •=* •=* •=• *=• *=^ •=* •=* •=• fgy

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

Everything which Theophile calls for, we called
for at the time of the poetic revolt which took place
under the Restoration, and no one can deny that
much-abused Theophile is right, both as regards the
matter and the form, in what he says. Hence all
the anathemas which have been hurled at him and
the bitter animosity which certain people entertain
towards him. Every one knows how vicious and
terrible is literary hatred ; our own days have shown
to what an extent it can be carried ; it is even bit-
terer, if that be possible, than political hatred, for the
latter usually touches self-interest only, while the
other hurts wounded or suffering self-love, which is
much worse.

Theophile proscribed the use of mythology, and
wished the decrepit divinities of ancient Olympus to
be left in their worn-out paper heaven. He was of
opinion that rosy-fingered dawn had ceased to be very
entertaining, and was getting terribly blotched in the
face ; that it was high time to drop Phoebus, with
his blond wig and his hurdy-gurdy, and that, after
all, the bass viol of pale-faced Saint Cecilia was at
least as good as the trump of blowsy Clio. He ap-
peared to care very little for the symbolic virginity

8 ^^^3

THE GROTESQUES

of the nine sacred maids, — an unpardonable crime,
— and he did not have much more use for poor little
naked Cupid. He pitilessly pulls out the feathers of
his wings, takes from him his quiver, his torch, his
leaden and golden arrows, and all his old-time para-
phernalia. If Alfred de Musset asked of the poet in
the magnificent opening lines of " Rolla," —

"Do you regret the days when heaven and earth lived and
shone in a nation of gods ? When Venus Astarte, uprisen
from the wave, shook off, a virgin yet, a mother's tears, and
fertilised the world as she twisted her hair I "

He would have replied proudly and without wasting
a single sigh upon all those lovely chimeras forever
vanished : —

** Of yore the mortals spoke with the gods; these inces-
santly rained down from heaven. Sometimes animals them-
selves prophesied ; the oaks of Dodona were oracles, too.
These tales trouble bold spirits, w^hich now feel differently
from men of yore. On this point some day I hope to speak."

I know of no modern writer who exhibits such
marked disdain for ancient mythology, who kicks so
insolently those poor devils of gods who cannot help
themselves. It would not have been so bad, either, if

114

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THEOPHILE DE VIAU

he had been satisfied with being impious and atheistic
with respect to bygone divinities ; so much might per-
haps have been forgiven him ; but he did not stop
there, the confounded innovator that he was.

You all know how powerful Phyllis was in those
days ; how she was petted, lauded, sung in madrigals,
what innumerable sighs were uttered on her account}
how many fainting fits, gallantly indiscreet dreams,
intoxications, and despairs, quatrains and stanzas, short
lines and long lines, blank verse and other verse,
sonnets, complaints, and songs she was the cause of.
All the echoes and parrots of that day knew her name
by heart. Her eyes gave birth to six thousand sonnets,
each single hair of her head produced one, her lips
inspired more than there are saints in the calendar; I
will not attempt to enumerate those which were rimed
about her bosom, for the whole of the Arabic and
Roman numerals would be insufficient.

Well, that Phyllis, so high bred, so precious, ever
young, ever fair, who appears to have been for two or
three centuries the only woman in France, that Phyllis,
whom he had courted himself as others had done, — he
one day throws in her face like a challenge these brutal
lines : —

115

THE GROTESQUES

" As oft as love recalls to my heart the innumerable charms
of the eyes of my fair, and what honour it is to love so well,
I esteem myself greater and happier than a god. Amarantha,
Phyllis, Calista, Pasiphae, — I hate the softness of your names ;
the eifort to attribute to you so many charms proves that in
fact your eyes had none. The divine belief of my gentle love
is that Mary's name is the fairest on earth. Whatever the
care that broods over me, it is cured by the utterance of that
fair name. My heart is moved, my soul is touched by th^
secret charms of hidden virtue. I constantly call on her, I
cannot refrain, no other remembrance within my mind doth
rest ; — naught else I know, none else I see. Would to God
she knew the pain I feel ! "

Mary — oh, fie! Mary, the name of the Mother
of God, the name of a queen, the name of a
Christian ! This is unparalleled abomination. What
depravation of taste to prefer such a name to those
beautiful Greek and Latin names, so mellifluous, so
euphemistic ! From that time Theophile was lost
for good.

Add to this that he was going to write, had not

death prevented him, a poem, not on the death of

Adonis or some similar subject, as it would have been

decent of him to do, but a national poem drawn from

our old chronicles, —

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

*' And these old forgotten portraits, retraced in my poem,
will spring frorn the old chronicles, and, restored by my verse,
will rise greater in the esteem of the world."

You see that his plan of insurrection was complete,
and that in every respect it was identical with the revo-
lution which has just taken place, even to the return to
the Middle Ages.

Besides these points of resemblance there is also the
seeking after colour and the study in nature itself of
landscape and picturesque effects. He paints a picture
with a figure and a landscape after the manner of
Giorgione, of a golden, transparent, fresh colour, the
drawing of which, though somewhat mannered in the
contours, is nevertheless neither Inaccurate nor lacking
in charm. He lays the scene in a forest, or rather, in
a park, probably that of Chantilly, where he is walking
with his mistress; and to find in French poetry a poem
more thoroughly full of love, of the cooing of doves,
of breaths and of sighs, more divinely scented with the
perfume of wild flowers, one is forced to come down
to the earlier "Meditations" of Lamartine, — that is
to say, to our greatest poet. His Elvire is the mate
of Theophile's Corinne, and he alone could impart so
much coolness to the foliage and so much melody to

117

THE GROTESQUES

the ripple of the water, to the sigh of the breeze.
There is in Theophile's poem a breath of that love
which inspired Solomon with his admirable " Song
of Songs." Only Theophile's love is more sensual,
less Christian and mystical than that of Lamartine,
as is to be expected. One would seek in vain in the
ethical, dry poetry of Malherbe anything approaching
the vivacity, nobility, harmony, and correctness of
Theophile's verse. Malherbe's lines to the Viscountess
d'Auchy and his sonnets on Fontainebleau are incon-
ceivably dry and barren, and yet it was into these, if
ever, that he should have put passion and colour
These two qualities are found to a greater extent in
the simplest poem by Theophile than in all Malherbe's
book J which fortunately is not very big, for God has
willed by a special grace that men who write such
verses as Malherbe's shall not be able to write many.
It is true that there occur in the work of Theophile
rather numerous passages in bad taste, but his bad taste
is ingenious and amusing, sparkling, interesting, unex-
pected, after the fashion of that of the Cavalier Marini,
and is due, in general, merely to a striving after noveltv.
Nor does Malherbe, dry as he is, possess by any means
taste as good as it is customary to claim for him ; even

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THEOPHILE DE VIAU

leaving aside "The Tears of Saint Peter," there are to
be met with' in his most famous poems lines exces-
sively mannered und forced antitheses which are char-
acteristic of the rhetorician. But his bad taste is dull,
timid, and does not strike one at once ; it is caused,
not by exuberance as in Theophile, but by poverty
and narrowness, and therefore less frequently finds an
opportunity to exhibit itself. Theophile thoroughly
understood this, and expressed it when he satirised the
so-called poets who see in poetry simply material for
prose, and consider a metaphor a piece of extravagance.

Theophile wrote at Chantilly three or four pieces of
verse, in which, amid a great number of beauties,
appear also an equally large number of faults of taste.
These pieces are unfortunately too long to be quoted
here. They are semi-mythological, semi-descriptive,
and bear a strikingly personal and peculiar stamp.
I know not whether you have ever seen in a museum
one of those paintings in which Albano draws, upon
a background so green that it shows black, a swarm
of little white Cupids with tiny and very pink wings,
or whether you have seen in the Louvre that charm-
ing water-colour by Decamps, representing women

119

THE GROTESQUES

bathing. If you know either or both, you will have
some notion of the delightful stanzas of Theophile.
They are full of great trees, — mighty old oaks whose
tops are rounded off with a plume of dark green, and
which stand out against an ultra-marine sky dappled
here and there with white and fleecy clouds ; or ter-
races of brick with stone facings, great flowers bloom-
ing in marble vases, and gently sloping stairs with
paunchy balustrades. Or, again, a Louis XIII park
in all its magnificence : through the trees and behind
the groves one catches a glimpse of tame deer white
as snow ; partridges and China pheasants walk familiarly
up and down the walks with all their brood ; brooks
babble under arcades of foliage and fall into the pools
and the fish-ponds, where lazily float in the sparkling
water a few swans with curved neck and open wings.
In the foreground, by way of figure, a handsome
young woman, seated upon the tall, rich grass of the
bank, is fishing in the reservoirs for gorgeous red and
blue fishes ; in the depths of the valleys, little plump,
white, dimpled Cupids are playing together ; and then
a group of those lovely allegorical nvmphs that painters
gave us in those days, somewhat related to those of
Rubens, more women than goddesses, with jutting

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THEOPHILE DE VI AU

breasts, broad, sweeping hips, plump, rounded arms,
dimpled hands and cheeks, their golden hair floating
behind them like a golden mantle, clear blue eyes,
lips smiling and red as the poppy, shoulders and
back lily white and polished as agate, shining in
the green water as if they were so many submerged
ivory statues. The waters are so clear and fresh
in their framework of verdure that at night the stars
descend from heaven to bathe in them. The valley
is so solitary and discreet that even chaste Diana does
not fear to bring thither her Endymion and to kiss his
brow with her silver lips. It is a paradise that dis-
gusts you with the terrestrial paradise ; one of those
lovely dreams which poets and painters dream in the
evening when they watch the sun set behind the great
chestnut-trees ; dreams such as I have often dreamed
at my window as I looked at the brick buildings and
the slate roofs of my Place Royale and heard the
sound of the water splashing in the fountains and the
wind soughing through the trees.

It is difficult to state the. rank which Theophlle
should occupy among the poets of the day. He died
very young, and did not have time to carry out his
ideas, at least in any but an incomplete fashion ; but

THE GROTESQUES

taking him as he was, it seems to us that, Regnier
having passed away and Corneille not having yet arisen,
he is the most remarkable poet of that period. He is
better than Hardy and Porchere, than Bois-Robert,
Maynard, Gombauld, and all the wits of that day, who,
for the matter of that, are of more worth than most
people seem to believe. Saint-Amant is the only one,
in our opinion, who can at all equal him, but Saint-
Amant is a great poet of splendidly bad' taste and of
a hot and luxurious facility, which conceals many dia-
monds in his dunghill ; he lacks, however, the eleva-
tion and the melancholy of Theophile, though he
makes up for it by a grotesqueness and a dash which
Theophile did not possess. The one writes verse like
a stout man, the other like a thin man, — that is the
difference. As to Malherbe and Racan, although they
are more irreproachable, they are unquestionably infe-
rior to him, and we have always been amazed at the
contempt and forgetfulness which have fallen since
so long a time upon a name so remarkable in many
respects, now that the- reforms which he sought to
introduce are accepted by every one. Perhaps that
will be thought quite simple and natural. But we
have got to go back to his day ; and by what happened

THEOPHILE DE VIAU

later it may be seen that Theophile was of a proo-res-
sive mind and ahead of his age. All truths have
always had some poor Saint John the Precursor, who
walks off" the road, preaches in the desert, and dies
at his work. Theophile was such an one ; and if
he were to return now to this world, there can be no
doubt that he would be one of the brightest stars of the
new Pleiades.

An interesting point to be noted is that Theophile
is the first one who wrote a work in prose and verse.
The subject is the death of Socrates, a subject which
has been treated by Lamarti-ne also, — a curious coin-
cidence, if it happens to be unintentional.

And that is about all that I can tell you about my
namesake. If you would like to know more, try to dis-
cover his complete works, published in a thick volume,
rather badly printed and full of mistakes, which is some-
times to be found upon the parapet of the Pont Neuf
and in the boxes of the second-hand booksellers.
Besides the lines we have quoted, you will read others
very beautiful, some remarkable sonnets, and enough
odes and elegies to amply repay you for the twenty
sous the book will have cost you.

123

Saint- Amant

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THE GROTESQUES

III

SAIN T-A M A N T

WHAT is known of Saint-Amant's life
amounts to very little ; not because he
led a quiet, uneventful life unworthy of
the honour of biography, — far from it,
— but Saint- Amant was a man of pleasure, accustomed
to the life of the world, the life of society, very care-
less as to what posterity might do with his name ;
so he left no documents concerning himself. What
Boileau says of him is a piece of pure invention, which
does not deserve the least credit. The study of the
literary history of the day proves readily that most of
the other assertions of the famous critic are just as
baseless, and that his judgments in matters of taste,
hitherto considered final, are far from being always
impartial and judicious.

Marc-Antoine Gerard, Sire of Saint-Amant, equerry,
was born at Rouen in the year 1594. A number

127

THE GROTESQUES

of writers, among them Menage and Brossette, have
stated that Saint-Amant was a gentleman glass-maker,
but they are mistaken. Maynard's epigram does not
mean that he was actually a gentleman glass-maker,
but alludes to a glass-making privilege which he re-
quested of Chancellor Seguier in 1638, as may be
seen by a petition in verse which is found in the third
part of his works. It is quite certain that Saint-Amant
was not a glass-maker, but that he managed a fine large
factory, the products of which were perfect enough to
be purchased for royal residences. Besides, he would
not have incurred the loss of the privileges of nobility
had he himself blown glass. That was the resource
of many poor gentlemen who had lost their fortunes.
This particular business was not considered degrading,
and did not deprive a man of the right to wear a
sword. Exposing those who practised it to almost
certain death on account of the burning air of the
furnaces, it was not abased to the rank of peaceful and
menial trades ; for it required courage to take it up,
and courage in France has always been counted the
true and simple mark of nobility.

His father, a very distinguished naval officer, served
Queen Elizabeth for twenty-two years, and was three

SAINT-AMANT

years a prisoner in the Black Tower at Constantinople.
His two brothers, one of whom served under Gustavus
the Great, were icilled while lighting the Turks. He
was himself attached for a long time to the Count of
Harcourt, a cadet of the house of Lorraine, whom he
followed to La Rochelle, Savoy, Sardinia, and Gibral-
tar, where he behaved not as a poet, but as a brave
man, or rather, both as a brave man and a poet, for
he has written on this subject one of his best poems,
which has a curious likeness to the poems of Victor
Hugo, " Canaris " and " Navarino," and especially to
de Vigny's " Serieuse," no doubt a fortuitous coinci-
dence. He was gentleman in waiting to Mary Louisa
of Gonzaga, who had become Queen of Poland by
her marriage to Ladislas Sigismond. In addition he
enjoyed a pension of three thousand livres, which his
friend, the Abbe de Marolles, had procured for him.
Many noblemen, occupying some of the best positions
at court, treated him with the most cordial familiarity.
He was a member of the French Academy ; he
travelled a great deal and visited every court in Europe,
and was received everywhere with distinction. This
is a long way from the Homeric poverty, which proves
nothing against his talent, but which the Parnassian

9 129

THE GROTESQUES

pedagogue dared to reproach him with in the following

lines : —

*< Heaven on Saint-Amant bestowed but his vein,
His sole inheritance was the coat he wore ;
A bed and two requests his whole wealth formed, —
That is, to speak plain, Saint-Amant a beggar was."

It is not true, either, that he came to court to make
himself and his verse known. His works had already
been printed for a long time, and his fine " Ode on
Solitude " had gained him deserved reputation. Saint-
Amant, whatever Boileau may say to the contrary,
won much success. His peculiar qualities, and even
his defects, were bound to attain this result in a litera-
ture yet permeated by the vigorous savour of Ronsard,
and which the school of verse-making grammarians,
founded by Malherbe and continued by Despreaux,
was striving to despoil of its colour and individuality.

No doubt Saint-Amant was occasionally in straitened
circumstances. That must ha\'e happened more than
once in a life of travel and pleasure such as he led ;
but such troubles are known to all rich men's sons
who have allowed Pactolus to slip too quickly between
their fingers, and who are hard put to it while wait-
ing for the payment of the first instalment of their
allowance. Saint-Amant was a hig-h liver in the

130

SAINT-AMANT

fullest sense of the words ; a scientific and passionate
drunkard, worthy of being a past master in the Order
of Vineyards ; an ultra-gourmand, knowing good
things better than any one else. He was a drunkard
and a gourmand in most Gallic and Rabelaisian fashion.
His deep respect, his almost tender veneration for
cheese ripened green and blue, for a boar's-ear, for a
smoked ox-tongue, for quince jam, hams, and other
incentives to hard drinking is worth noting. He is
quite like the Greek mentioned in " The Way to
Success," who wished he had a neck as long as a
stork's so that he might the longer enjoy the drinking
of the September vintage, and who could not conceive
of any happier fate in this or any other world than that
of being a wine funnel. Saint-Amant enjoys a meal
in a low tavern; he enjoys a delicate supper in a
reputable or a disreputable place, at Coiffier's, at the
lle-au-Bois, and in Laplante-le-Borgne's tavern. He
is there in his element ; his big, red face lights up
with satisfaction, he calls for drink louder than Panta-
gruel did when he came into the world. He cries
" Stake ! " to this one and that, and never shirks
drinking a health. Like the monk of Amiens, who
grew wroth at not finding in Florence, the city of

THE GROTESQUES

pictures and statues, a single eating-house, he swears
madly at Evreux, which has twenty churches and not
even a single tavern. It would be a mistake to sup-
pose, however, that Saint-Amant is a vulgar drunkard
who drinks for the sake of drink. Not at all ; he is a
drunkard after the fashion of Hoffman, — a poetic
drunkard, who thoroughly understands an orgy and
knows what fire may flash from the clinking of the
glasses of two clever men. He understands that
genius is but the intoxication of reason, and he gets
drunk as often as he can. There are some men who
have the power of separating at will their dream from
reality, and of wholly abstracting themselves from their
surroundings, — La Fontaine, for instance, who was
absent-minded all his life. Others are compelled to
have recourse to factitious means, to wine or opium,
in order to put to sleep the prison jailer and to let
their fancy rove. Of these is Saint-Amant. The
inspiring beam reaches him much more brilliant and
richly coloured through the rosy paunch of a wine
flagon ; his metaphor springs forth more boldly when
it accompanies the cork of the bottle and strikes the
ceiling at the same time with it. How vivid is his
touch then, how brilliant, how rapid ! He is no

132

SAINT-AMANT

longer the same manj he is, as it were, a poet within
a poet.

Now tell me, does not his inequality, full of flam-
boyant gleams and of deepest obscurity, of loftiest
summits and deepest abysses, please you a great deal
better than severe and worthy mediocrity, starless and
cloudless, lighted everywhere with a pale artificial day
resembling the light of candles ? A writer such as he
was, so hot, so full of life, with flesh and blood after
the manner of Rubens, a mind at once German and
Spanish, a man who had seen so many things and who
painted with colours peculiar to himself what he had
seen with his own eyes, could not in the least approve
himself to Boileau with his sober and narrow mind ;
Boileau, who was an impassioned critic, and an ignorant
one, save as regards ancient literature ; Boileau, who
was a poet speaking always of verse and of rime, and
never of poetry ; a skilful adapter in whose whole work
there are practically not four lines which are absolutely
his own ; a short-sighted satirist who can see no other
crimes in the world, no other vices to lash than mistakes
of grammar or discordant lines. Therefore Boileau
speaks most disdainfully of Saint-Amant in his" Art of
Poetr\'." It is true that by way of compensation he

133

THE GROTESQUES

grants him, in his " Reflections upon Longinus," genius
enough for debauched work, but grudgingly.

Nevertheless, Saint-Amant is undoubtedly a very great
and very original poet, worthy of being cited with the
best of those whom France delights to honour. His
rime is extremely rich, abundant, unexpected, and often
unlooked for ; his rhythm is harmonious, skilfully
maintained and used ; his style very varied, very pic-
turesque, very full of fantasy, sometimes lacking taste,
but always entertaining and novel. I shall show by
analyses and quotations the character and the spirit he
managed to impart to the smallest things ; but before
we estimate his literary value, it would be well to finally
get rid of the biographical details. Fortunately, we have
not much more to say. Saint-Amant was not a thorough
Greek and Latin scholar, he says so himself. On the
other hand, he knew English, Spanish, and Italian very
well, and further, he was an excellent musician and
played acceptably on the lute. He alludes several
times, in the course of his works, — not very modestly,
we are bound to say, — to his musical talent ; in
" Moses Saved," among others, in which, in order to
give an idea of the exquisite song of the nightingale, he
compares it to his charming performances on the lute ;

SAINT-AMANT

which would lead one to believe that he played not as
a mere amateur, but as a consummate virtuoso. This
fact is rather remarkable, too, in a French poet, for
there are not many who are both musicians and poets,
except perhaps in very distant times ; for poetry and
music, which might be believed to be sisters, are more
antagonistic than is generally thought. There is but a
very small number of musicians capable of re-writing
the lines of a libretto when it does not happen to suit
them ; there is no poet that I am aware of, who can
sing correctly the easiest of airs. Victor Hugo par-
ticularly abhors the opera, and even grinding organs ;
Lamartine flees when a piano is opened ; Alexandre
Dumas sings about as well as Mile. Mars or the late
Louis XV of harmonious memoiy ; and I, if it be per-
missible to mention hyssop after having spoken of
cedars, I am bound to confess that the screaking of a
saw and the scraping of the fourth string by the cleverest
violinist produce exactly the same effect upon me.
This is a remark which no one has made before me,
and which I have verified so far as the circle of my
acquaintances has enabled me to do so. I give it to
the public, and shall be very glad if some scientific man
will take hold of it and experiment on it on a larger

THE GROTESQUES

scale. It would help to reduce music to its true rank ;
for people affect to look upon it as if it were poetry
itself, though music is addressed more particularly to
the senses, and poetry to thought, which is a very different
thing. Music affects animals. There are dilettante
sporting dogs who go into fits when they hear the
swell organ played, and poodles who follow street
singers, howling in the most harmonious and enchant-
ing fashion. But if you read the finest verses in the
world to these animals, they scarcely take notice of them.
Besides his talent as a lute player, Saint-Amant also
possessed the gift of reading his verses admirably well ;
so very well that he completely concealed their defects,
and there was no way of telling the best from the good
and the mediocre from the worst. Gombaud, often
deceived by this magic power and annoyed at being
always caught, wrote an epigram on the subject which
is not to be read literally any more than any other
epigram : —

" Your verse is beautiful when you speak it,

But it is worthless when I read it.

You cannot always speak it, —

Write some, then, so I can read it."

He was one of the first members of the Academy,
in which he was succeeded by the Abbe Cassaigne.

SAINT-AMANT

He was granted the privilege of not making a speech
on being received, on condition that he would take
charge of the burlesque and jovial part of the famous
Dictionary, the subject of so many jokes ; and cer-
tainly he was better fitted than any one else to do this
successfully, both in theory and from experience, for his
vocabulary in this line is very extensive and very pic-
turesque. His writings show that the French language
is neither so prudish nor so prim as people would have
it, and that, just as well as any other language on
earth, it can find the right word for the right thing,
and can perfectly well say what it does not care to
conceal.

In 1656 Queen Christina, when the members of the
Academy were presented to her, readily recognised
Saint-Amant, and expressed to him the pleasure she
felt in seeing him a member of the illustrious company.
This happened five years before his death. It would
seem, therefore, that he was not so utterly discredited
as Boileau chooses to affirm.

Having begun his poem of " Moses," he travelled
on to Warsaw on purpose to show to Mary de Gon-
zaga, to whom the work is dedicated, the part which
he had already written. He was stopped at Saint-Omer,

137

THE GROTESQUES

as may be seen by the following extract from the pref-
atory letter : —

" This great favour. Madam, did not confine itself only to
aiding the work, but also aided the workman himself; for
when I was going to Poland to pay my most faithful duty to
your Majesty, and to bring you what I had written of my
poem, I was arrested by the garrison of Saint-Omer. No
doubt that if I had not said at once that I had the honour to be
one of your gentlemen in waiting, and had not been protected
by such splendid and strong armour, I should have been unable
to parry that stroke of misfortune. I should have risked the
loss of my life, and ' Moses Saved ' would have been
'Moses Lost.' But the men who arrested me, fierce and
insolent though they were, respected in the servant the great-
ness of the mistress ; the splendour of so famous a name made
them retain the bolt they were ready to launch at me, and
their eyes, seeing that name shine like a fair star on the first
of the books of my work, were so dazzled by it that they
dared no longer look upon it. Fear lest some profane curiosity
might have made a copy thereof led me to resolve henceforth
to change its aspect and the whole plot. The desire of ac-
complishing this purpose never left me during my trip. I even
tried on several occasions, but in adverse places, to carry it
out ; but I discovered that the Muses of the Seine were so
delicate that thev had been unable to follow me on this long
trip ; that the fatigue of the journey had upset them, and that
I absolutely required a solitary and natural retreat where these

^^8 "

SAINT-AMANT

lovely virgins could dwell, so that I might carry out what I
projected. That was why I returned to France, Madam,
and if'l have done wrong in so returning, I trust your Majesty
will graciously forgive me, since it is due to that fact that I
have better ordered and completed what I would never have
undertaken save to contribute in some way to your Majesty's
diversion."

In some lines which he wrote he seems to manifest
a desire to become naturalised in Poland, but Saint-
Amant did not become Saint-Amanski ; he returned to
France and rewrote " Moses " under the title of
*' Heroic Idyl," a title which drew down upon itself
sharp criticism, in spite of the Academy's approval,
which the author rests upon in the Preface, remarkable,
both from the point of view of style and as containing
the literary opinions of the poet. Here are a few
extracts from it : —

** I have introduced episodes to fill the scene, if I may so
speak ; and without observing fully the rules of the ancients,
which I nevertheless revere and am not ignorant of, I made
wholly new rules for myself because of the novelty of my
invention, believing that reason alone would be a sufficiently
powerful authority to justify them. For indeed, provided
a thing is judicious and suits dmes, places, and persons, what
matters it whether Aristotle has or has not approved it ? Stars

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THE GROTESQUES

have been discovered in these later ages which, had he seen
them, would have made him see other things than he has said,
and our modern philosophy is not always in accordance with
his in all its principles and definitions."

A little farther on, apologising for the use of some
obsolete words, he says : —

" A tall and venerable antique chair sometimes looks very
well and maintains its rank in a room adorned with the most
fashionable and splendid furniture. For my part, whatever
may be said in praise of the Greek and Latin tongues, however
rich they may be and whatever advantages they may have over
ours, I cannot but believe that Homer and Virgil considered
them poor and incomplete in comparison with the richness
and abundance of their thoughts, and that they always had in
their own minds some hidden images which they could not
express with their pen. That is my view ; — some other man
will express his.

" I foresee also that those who care only for imitations of
the ancients, who make idols of them, and who would have
men servilely bound to say nothing but what the ancients have
said — as if the human mind were not free to produce anything
new — will affirm that they would think more highly of what
I might have plagiarised from some one else than of anything
which I could give them out of my own resources. It is true
that I do not greatly enjoy adorning myself with other people's
feathers, as did the crow in Horace, and that usually I confine

140

SAINT-AM ANT

myself to roaking bouquets of small flowers gathered in my own
garden.

"I should like, by way of conclusion, to say a word about
my style and the method I have followed in writing my verses,
if time allowed me. I would say that I am not of the same
opinion as those who insist that the meaning should always be
completed at the end of the second and fourth hnes. The
measure must he interrupted occasionally, in order to diversify
it more, for it causes to the ear a certain weariness which can
only arise from continuous uniformity. I would say that this
is what is called in musical language changing the intervals or
the rhythm in order to return to it more agreeably. I should
call it the difference between narrative and descriptive style ;
and after I had said all that at great length and with the requi-
site detail, I should not have said the hundredth part of what
may be said about it."

These lines show to which side belonged Saint-
Amant in the great quarrel of the ancients and the
moderns which made so much noise at that time. His
remarks, which appear to-day of patriarchal simplicity
and almost stupid, so true are they, were in those
days singularly bold. He was indeed courageous, and
launched point-blank the most unheard-of paradoxes.
What ! so long as a thing is suited to persons, times,
and places, it matters little whether Aristotle approved
of it or not ? But that is monstrous ; you must be a

141

THE GROTESQUES

very wicked man to maintain such heresy. Men have
been burned for less. In one and the same preface
you preach liberty and the progress of the human
mind and you value a native flower which blooms,
fresh and perfumed, in the sunshine of inspiration,
more than all those artificial, foreign plants trans-
planted with great difficulty from the ancient into the
hothouses of the modern Parnassus ? You prefer your
plumage, such as it is, to the plumage of the peacock,
so rich and varied, in which you could disguise your-
self? You affirm that Homer and Virgil must have
complained of the poverty of the Greek and Latin
tongues ? You preach in favour of varied verse with
mobile caesura and irregular cadence, neither more
nor less than a modern young Romanticist ? I am
bound to say that you deserve the ferule strokes
which Boileau deals out to you here and there with
his learned hand in his "Satires" and in his "Art
of Poetry."

" Moses Saved " was exceedingly successful, al-
though it is far from being an irreproachable work ;
but the descriptive portions are extremely brilliant and
compensate for many defects. Description is what
Saint-Amant excels in. His numerous voyages to

142

SAINT-AM ANT

Italy, England, 'America, the Canaries, Spain, Africa,
the Mediterranean, and elsewhere enabled him to varv
his palette infinitely and to enrich it with original and
striking colours.

" I feel sure," he says, ♦* that those who have not travelled
as much as I have, and who are not acquainted with all the
rarities of nature because they have not seen almost all of them
as I have, will not regret my telling them of some of these.
The description of the smallest things is my peculiar property ;
it is to this that I most frequendy devote my little talent."

On his return from Poland he began to live in a
wiser and better-ordered manner. He lodged in the
Rue de Seine. In spite of his disorderly life, he had
always been naturally pious at bottom, and a fine relig-
ious feeling breathes in some of the poems which he
wrote towards the end of his life. That is the only
period when Boileau's charge of poverty seems to have
some basis. It appears that he lacked money to pay
his host, who, for the matter of that, did not ask for it,
having known him for a long time and aware that he
would never cheat him. This caused him to sink into
a state of melancholy, which the death of that very host
and the fear of finding himself without means increased
still further, and which led him to his grave after a few

_^ 143 ^

^:l;'i:d- 4: 4; 4, 4: 4; 4. 4,^4; 4,4.4; 4:4; 4.4:4. 4: 4:4;

THE GROTESQUES

days' illness in the year i666. Some say that the fail-
ure of a poem in praise of Louis XIV, entitled " The
Speaking Moon," on which he had built great hopes,
was the cause of his death. This is scarcely likely. A
man has to be a Kirke White or a Keats — that is to
say, to be exceedingly simple and not more than twenty
— to die of such a cause. The susceptibility of our
older authors is not quite so morbid, however deep may
be their poetical vanity. Now, Saint-Amant was far
from being a beginner, for he was then about sixty-
seven years of age.

It remains, in order to complete the physical and
material picture of the poet, to draw his portrait, after
having told of his life and death. It is not a difficult
matter, and can be done in a few words. Saint-Amant
was big, stout, short, with soft eyes, bright complexion,
fair, curly hair like a German count, a round, open
face, red lips, and a pair of curling moustaches. A near
relative of Falstaff, preferring a cask of claret to all
the Phyllises upon earth, he calls himself repeatedly
" good, big Saint-Amant," paunch, hogshead, barrel,
and other like epithets which would be scarcely suitable
to a poet who had starved to death. His stoutness had
become somewhat proverbial in the company he fre-

144

SAINT-AMANT

qucnted, but although he was big and stout, he was not
stupid — far from it. Terburg's landsknecht, who is
drinking out of a huge glass in a courtesan's room, may
give our reader, or readers (for we hope we shall have
more than one), a very correct idea of the figure and
costume of our poet. A glance at that picture will
teach him more than all we could say, supposing,
which, to say the least, is doubtful, he is curious to
know accurately the appearance of a discredited and
utterly forgotten author.

Saint-Amant, although a stout drunkard, is never-
theless not exclusively a bacchanalian poet after the
manner of Panard, Desaugiers, and the members of
the Caveau. He can write something more lofty
than a drinking song, and he often exhibits a fine
lyric power. His " Solitude," which was published
a great many times and translated into Latin verse,
is, for the time at which it appeared, a very beautiful
piece of work. It contains in germ the greater part
of the literary revolution which took place later. In
it, nature is studied directly, and not through the work
of previous masters. There is nothing in the so-called
classic poets of that day so fresh in colour, so trans-
parent in light, so vague and melancholy in reverie,

lo 145

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THE GROTESQUES

so calm and sweet in manner, as the qualities which
make the " Ode on Solitude " so charming. The
poet is wandering in a lonely place where the noise
of the world does not reach him, and he describes what
he sees, not in the dry, geometric manner of the Abbe
Delille, but with a freedom, a skilfulness of touch,
and a feeling which reveal a great master. It is
scarcely possible to do better in the picturesque style.
There are great trees which witnessed the birth of
time, that seem still young, so green is their foliage,
so cool and humid is their shade. They bow their
heads gently as they listen to the warbling of the
nightingale, as do dilettanti at the Italian opera ; they
yield up to the rosy fingers of the breeze their thick
crowns, and cradle in their arms the nests of doves
and bullfinches. The scented hawthorn, beloved of
spring, showers its silvery snows upon the emerald
sward. From the summit of a precipitous mount,
whose gullied sides show ochre and chalk, falls a fierce
torrent which races madly through the green, wild
valley, and which soon, its fury spent, meanders
through the high, thick grass like an azure-backed
serpent and makes a crystal throne for the local Naiad.
Further on, a pool edged with beam-trees, alders, and

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SAI NT-AM ANT

willows ; the gladioli and the reeds quiver in the wind ;
the timid frog leaps and plunges into the water when
any one draws near ; the heron picks at its feathers,
careless of the hunter ; innumerable aquatic birds sport,
and swim, and play together. On the motionless
surface of the waters, into which no traveller has ever
dipped his hand to drink and which no oar has ever
rippled, floats the water lily. Newton Fielding, the
Raphael of ducks, would not have done any better
with his rich and sparkling pencil. The scene changes
again. It is now an old, ruined castle in which
wizards and witches hold their sabbath revels and
where dwell hobgoblins. The osprey sings its funereal
song to the dancing imps; adders and owls nestle in
walls which the slug soils with its silvery slime. The
floor of the highest room has fallen into the cellar;
ivies grow on the hearths. On the gibbet of accursed
timber the wind rattles the skeleton of a poor, rejected
lover, who has hanged himself in despair; — and, with
due regard to Boileau, I think the suicide's body is
admirably placed. After having wandered for some
time through the ruins in which pale Morpheus sleeps
in the arms of Idlesse, lying upon sheaves of poppies,
the poet ascends a steep clifF, the brow of which seems

147

THE GROTESQUES

to seek the realms of mist, and from that point he
watches the wide-stretching sea which bears in and
carries away the pebbles on the shore. He sees sponges,
seaweed, ambergris, or bodies of stranded monsters
floating about ; he sees the heavy Tritons rising above
the tumultuous waves, sounding their trumps and
calming the storm. Then comes this fine strophe,
marvellously like the one in Victor Hugo's " Fire of
Heaven." Saint-Amant is speaking of the sea : —

♦* Sometimes, most limpid, it resembles a floating mirror,
and reflects the skies within its waters. Tlie sun shows so
clear within it, as it contemplates its fair face, that one doubts
for a time whether it is the sun or its image, for at first it
seems that it has fallen from the skies."

The poem ends with a few witty strophes of envoi.

The ode entitled " The Contemplator," although
less known and less frequently quoted than the " Ode
to Solitude," contains passages of great beauty and of
the same general character. It is a reverie about
everything and nothing, — about a passing fish, a cor-
morant that flies away, a fluttering moth, a floating
halcyon's nest, — mingled with religious reflections
and pious aspirations. The poem is addressed to a
prelate, Philippe Cospeau, Bishop of Nantes.

rt%r^ r^ *1« rjU rt% «A« rL% rt% «i* (iv >A« «1* *A* •!« «1« *1« »i« •!« *i« *1« »|« »i<>l«

SAINT-AMANT

This, however, is but one side of Saint-Amant's
talent. The grotesque, that indispensable element
which small, narrow minds have striven to reject
from the domain of art, abounds in his verse, and
squirms at the end of his rimes as fantastically as
the snakes and monsters on the Gothic cornices and
under the porches of the old cathedrals. He is less
playful in this style than is Scarron, but the strong,
bold colour which the latter lacks imparts to Saint-
Amant's grotesque a much greater artistic value. His
outline is clean and sharp after the fashion of Cal-
lot, with something of excessive and strange which
gives to the figures he draws a family resemblance
to the Tartaglia, the Brighelli, and the Pulchinelli
of the Lorraine engraver. Van Ostade would think
this interior, sketched in black and white, not unworthy
of himself. It is the apartment of a debauchee. The
piece is too long and too free in speech to allow us to
quote it ; we shall summarise its chief features in a
few lines.

After having climbed high enough to lead to the
belief that one has got to the third heaven into which
Saint Paul was caught up, a door is reached where
a rat could only get through by crawling. The room

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THE GROTESQUES

is so cold that in mid-summer one freezes in it as in
December, and a fire has to be lighted. A little
rascal of a valet returns laden with faggots which he
has stolen in town ; but the smoke spreads through the
room and makes the company shed more tears than
if every one had lost all his relatives. It is in this
yellow and red smoke that the poet draws up the
inventory of the furniture owned by the debauchee,
and there is not much of it, as will be believed. An
old basket serves both as chair, footstool, and armchair,
so that if one man is seated and thus saves wearing out
the soles of his boots, the other stands up straight like
a fir tree or a paschal candle. The broken lute-case
is used alternately as a trunk and a pillow ; a bottle
takes the place of the candlestick ; the owner's rapier
is equally useful as a spit and as a knife. On the
mantelpiece are to be seen heaps of ends of old pipes,
a dice-box with its three dice, and the " Hours " of
Robert Beniere for the use of lansquenet players. As
for linen, web is not lacking, but unfortunately it is
cobwebs, and the rascal's whole outfit consists of a
comb in a sock, — the comb itself being nothing but
the backbone of a fish. As for perfumes and scented
powders, it is no use looking for them there ; the ashes

150

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SAINT-AMANT

serve him for powder, and for pistachio he has a piece
of garlic. His nails, longer than his fingers, answer
the purpose of Scotch toothpicks. He has turned
a pair of compasses into a curling iron, a paving stone
into an andiron, and a rufF into a collar ; and when he
is tired — tired, not drunk — with debauch, he says
good-night to the tankards, and, by merely rolling over
to the left, he turns his tablecloth into a sheet and his
table into a bed. The wall forms his bed-curtain, and
the moon shining through a rough window, is his night-
light. Nevertheless, our two epicureans enjoy in this
delightful place the best meal which can be eaten
between the two poles.

Undoubtedly the picture is not noble in tone, but
it is painted with warmth, and those who do not
exclaim, as did Louis XIV on seeing paintings by
Teniers, " Take away these deformities ! " will study
it, I hope, with some pleasure, as well as the sketch
of a similar subject, — a sonnet entitled "The
Gluttons," which is full of a vivacity, a feeling and
a natural touch not often met with in French
poetry. The volume contains many other pieces
like this one. What think you of this portrait, for
instance? — You see that man who is paying his

151

THE GROTESQUES

court to the bronze King on the platform of the Pont
Neuf, his owl's eyes, his pointed beard, his long nose ?
The crowd collects to watch him. One man thinks
he is an orang-outang, another a werewolf, another an
ostrich, and another, one of the camels which M. de
Nevers brought home. Some say that it is a pitcher,
and others a clock-hammer, which has escaped from
some steeple. — It is a poet! — Would you like to
know how a poet was dressed in those days .? He wears
a black felt hat, grown white by dint of wear, with a
greasy cord around it and adorned with a cock's
feather. His doublet grins at everybody and smiles at
every seam. If you want td wish any one a long life,
wish that he may live as long as that doublet ; he will
attain the age of Methuselah. A short cloak of red
camlet adorns him at all seasons, winter and summer.
A narrow garter, made of a piece of frieze, cuts across
his vest and takes the place of a scarf. There hangs
from it a foil, by way of sword, which cuts into the
ground behind him as if it were the coulter of a plough.
To tramp through the mud he puts on his stockingless
feet a pair of old boots, one an oyster fisherman's, very
broad and of black leather, the other with a white
knee-piece of Russia leather ; the one with a short flat

152

SA INT-AM ANT

toe, the other with a twisted flap. His left heel is
armed with a small spur, after the English fashion ; he
wears nothing on the right, save a string, somewhat
like Gringoire in " Notrc-Dame de Paris," which is in-
tended to fasten the sole of the boot, ever ready to
part company with the sole of his foot. As for his
breeches, they are of imitation yellow satin, the one leg
too long, the other too short. They are the remains
of a ballet costume which some gallant gave him of
yore with a quarter crown, for writing the anagram
of the princess the said gallant was in love with. This
is certainly a pretty poor costume, and we must hope
for the honour of poetry that the colouring of the pic-
ture is somewhat exaggerated ; but it is an excellent
caricature* and compels an involuntary laugh, like grim-
acing marionettes.

It is especially in " Rome Ridiculous " that his buf-
foon wit is most original and entertaining. It is a well
deserved lesson given jokingly to enthusiastic tourists.
You ought to see how he makes fun of the much
vaunted Tiber, calling it a wretched little river, a bare-
footed river, a river of no account, which actually
indulges in bridges as if they were needed to cross it.
What, is that the Tiber, which one expects to see with

153

THE GROTESQUES

its crystal wave, its golden sand, a porcelain urn and a
beautiful wreath of water-lilies on its head ? Why, it
is only a brooklet which a dwarf could walk across ; a
duck could use one foot only for swimming, the other
would be on dry land. The golden sand is nothing
but vile-smelling mud, the crystal wave a thin stream-
let of dirty water, the porcelain urn an earthenware
pitcher, the wreath of water-lilies a woollen cap full of
holes, and the god is nothing but a porter. And the
poor monuments of antiquity — how he does treat
them ! Never did any one speak so irreverently of
them. He roars with laughter at the enthusiasm of
antiquarians for heaps of shapeless stone fit only to be
dens of toads and scorpions ; he laughs consumedly at
the Tritons of the Piazza Navone which powder their
wigs with the spray of water, and which, with the jet
of liquid which springs from their mouths, look more
like monkeys smoking than marine divinities. And
how sharply he speaks about you, beautiful Roman
women ! In his opinion you have no right to the rep-
utation which your charms enjoy ; you possess neither
beauty, wit, nor talent. You are as dark as gipsies,
greasy-haired, shapeless, big-headed, and flat-footed.
Your husbands are very wrong to lock you up. There

154

SAINT-AMANT

is no need that a duenna should be constantly at your
heels and should duplicate your shadow ; you are quite
capable of guarding yourselves, and your ugliness is a
sufficient duenna. The cardinals themselves are not
safe from his quizzing. He describes in the same
comical fashion their great, old-fashioned coaches
with the gilding worn off and drawn by thin-flanked
mules, their ragged pages, and their shoeless foot-
men. O descendants of the wolf's whelps, how he
does take you to task for your servility, your avarice,
your meanness, your rascality ! How he paints all
your rabble which asks for tips, this one because
he looked at you, the other because he said, " God
bless you " ! How he reproaches you for your mon-
strous admiration for Venus Callipyge ! How he
laughs at your music, at your serenades which are
more discordant than an amateur concert ! Hector
Berlioz could not have said any more. And your
great, soft felt hats with their plumes that flutter like
owls preparing to take flight, your long, rusty swords,
your worn velvet, your tarnished galloons ! How
pitilessly he lashes you ! A single thing in Italy finds
favour in his eyes, — it is polenta with cheese and
Montcfiascone wine.

THE GROTESQUES

You must confess that Saint-Amant was a man
very much in advance of his age.

The inseparable friend of old Father Farre and of
the pale and gloomy Bilot who blew smoke out of his
nostrils, he can, when he chooses, rise to the most
serious and loftiest style, as witness these lines from
his "Moses": —

** The insolent barbarian, armed with an assegai still drip-
ping with blood from many a wound, steps forth first, and
with his muscular arm hurling it at Moses, touches his hair.
The javelin thrown in vain hurdes past like thunder, and
quivering, plunges more than a foot into the ground. The
Egyptian turns pale at missing his blow, and disappointed
rage in his pallor is shown. Moses, agile and firm, at once
charges him, and with a steel that gleams and death fore-
tells, dazzles him and strikes a dreadful blow, which he hears
in terror whistle as it comes. He avoids it, draws back,
and showing his skill, springs, sword in hand, towards the
Hebrew who presses upon him. The one charges, the
other guards and with the sword fends off the maddened
edge which threatens him again. Sparks fly fast from the
striking swords ; now one stands firm, now the other strug-
gles ; and although in this fight their bodies are unarmed,
they are none the less eager to assault. Both tall, both
strong, they hope for victory. Eye, foot, and hand follow

and unite, the arm works with the heart, the skill answers
_-

SAINT-AMANT

the wish, and to take breath neither has time. Tricks and
turns, surprises and feints, and all that fencing in its quickest
strokes has of bold, terrible, abrupt, and cruel, is prac-
tised by each in this bitter duel. But though the pagan val-
iantly behaves, though skilful he appears, he cannot prevent
his enemy's sword, dreadful in his sight, wounding him
grievously in many a place. With pain and shame mad-
dened, he blasphemes, grows angry, howls, and with bitter
spite casting on Moses a look of wrath, strikes swiftly at his
head. Moses, who watches him and who sees him lunge
far from the protection of his sword, charges him, head
down. The sword strikes a pine and marks it with mis-
taken blow. The tree, struck, cracks and trembles with
horror. The pagan, astounded to find his sword has left
his hand through this great effort, turns quick towards Moses
and on him springing, with arms and legs at once enfolds
him. Moses receives him. They clutch in desperate strug-
gle, recall their vigour, shake each other, breathe hard and
grate their teeth ; their clothes they tear and their burning
eyes look like rubies strange. Each tries a thousand turns,
and renewing his strength, twists his foe and by him is
twisted ; their postures they change, with labour they burn,
and the sweat with which their bodies is covered shows
that every muscle, vein, and nerve is on a strain and swollen
with effort. My agitated eves see In their struggle their
footprints mingling fast together on the sands. The pagan's
valour begins to ebb, his strength by his wrath is in vain

THE GROTESQUES

sustained. He yields, and the Hebrew, ending the fight,
presses him close, makes him groan, raises him, throws him
down, presses with one knee his panting breast. Seeing
him draw a mortal dagger, which the ardour of the fight
made him forget, with one hand he seizes his weakened
wrist, with the other his fingers opens ; then, untwisting
them, drags away the knife, turns down the point and thrice
drives it up to the silver hilt, exquisitely graved, into its
master's breast."

Those who care for poetry may compare this passage
with that in the battle of Don Paez and Etur de
Guadarre in the " Tales of Spain and Italy." It is an
interesting comparison to make on account of the sim-
ilarity of action and style.

M. de Vigny would perhaps be much astonished to
find in Saint-Amant the idea, thought so charming, of
the tear of Christ received in a diamond urn. It is
there, however, and very well developed, only it is a
tear of Jocabed.

"Smarra, or The Nightmare" has been exploited by
Saint-Amant as well as by Charles Nodier, and in his
works are found many fantastic pieces which are equal
to the strangest thing of this kind in English and in
German. "Martin" alone would form a Biblical

^58

SAINT-AM ANT

picture more dazzling than that of the bath of the
Princess of Termuth : —

"She descends into the stream upon steps of agate and
mother-of-pearl, between two pyramids, under a sapphire-
coloured canopy. A golden grating gives passage to the silver
tide in which great trees dip their boughs. She emerges from
the bath, and her form is reflected from column to column on
the polished porphyry like the shadow of a swan on a lake."

I think that It is enough to make us forgive Saint-
Amant his famous line, —

" The fishes, amazed, behold them pass."

159

Cyrano de Bergerac

THE GROTESQUES

Cyrano de Bergerac

CERTAIN physiologists pretend that they
can diagnose cleverness, courage, and all
the noble qualities by means of the nose,
and that no one can be a great man unless
he has a large nose. Many feminine physiologists also
deduce from the size of that worthy part of the face
a most advantageous augury. However this may be,
Socrates was flat-nosed ; but Socrates confesses that he
was born with the most vicious tendencies, and that it
was perhaps due to mere laziness on his part that he
did not become a great rascal. Caesar and Napoleon
had a regular eagle's-beak in the middle, of their faces ;
old Pierre Corneille had a highly developed nasal pro-
montory. Look at medals and portraits, — you will
find in heroes the nose proportioned to the greatness
of their glory — and there are no catarrhal ones. The
reason that negroes are usually stupid is not because
they are flat-skulled — the skull has nothing to do with

^6^

TH E GROTESQUES

it ; it is because they are as flat-nosed as death itself.
Elephants, which are endowed with so much intelli-
gence as to make many a poet blush, are indebted for
the cleverness one notices in them to the prodigious
extension of their nose, for their trunk is a real nose
five or six feet in length. Not so bad, is it ?

This nosology may appear to be rather out of place
at the beginning of a literary criticism, but on opening
the first volume of Bergerac, in which is to be seen
a copperplate portrait of him, the gigantic size and
the strange shape of his nose so drew my attention
that I have dwelt on it longer than the thing was
worth, indulging in the profound reflections which
have just been read, and in many others which I spare
the reader.

This most extraordinary nose adorns a face seen in
three-quarters, the lesser side of which is entirely
covered by it. It forms in the centre a mountain
which appears to me likely to be, next to the Hima-
layas, the highest mountain in the world. Then it
dashes down towards the mouth, which it adumbrates
heavily, like the trunk of a tapir or the beak of a
bird of prey. At its very extremity it is divided into
two parts by a line not unlike, though more marked,
164

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

that which divides the cherry lip of Anne of Austria,
the fair queen with the long ivory hands. This gives
the effect of two distinct noses on the same face, which
is more than custom allows. Some hunting-dogs also
present this peculiarity ; it is a mark of great kindliness
of temper. The portraits of Saint Vincent of Paul, or
of the Deacon Paris, exhibit the most characteristic
types of this sort of structure. Only, Cyrano's nose is
less pasty, less fleshy in its contour; it is fuller of bone
and of cartilage, it has more flat and more shining
spots ; it is more heroic. The rest of the face, so far
as this splendid nose permits one to see it, struck me
as being graceful and regular. The eyes are oval-
shaped and very dark, which gives them surprising fire
and gentleness ; the eyebrows are thin, though very
marked ; the moustache, somewhat fine and scant, is
lost in the shadow of the corners of the mouth ; the
hair, dressed in the most modish fashion, falls grace-
fully on either side of the face. But for his nose he
would really be a handsome fellow. This unfortu-
nate nose afforded Cyrano de Bergerac an opportunity
of displaying his valour in duels which were repeated
almost every day. If any one committed the mistake
of looking at him and exhibiting the least astonishment

^6^

THE GROTESQUES

at the sight of such a nose, he forthwith had to appear
on the ground ; and as the duels of that time did not
finish up with a breaicfast, and Cyrano was a skilful
swordsman, a man ran the risk of receiving a good
sword-thrust in his belly and of coming off with his
doublet adorned with more buttonholes than it had
before. In a very short time, therefore, everybody
agreed that the shape of Cyrano's nose was exceed-
ingly fine, and scarce any but a yokel not yet versed
in the ways of the town bethought himself of passing
a joke upon it. Needless to add that a fierce lunge
driven home soon taught the joker the amenities of
life, if it did not lay him out dead. So far there is
nothing to be said ; every man is bound to have his
nose respected ; but Cyrano, not content with killing
or grievously wounding those who did not appear satis-
fied with his olfactory organ, sought to establish as a
principle that everybody ought to have a big nose, and
that flat-nosed people were shapeless abortions, creat-
ures scarcely more than blocked out, of whom nature
was ashamed. It is in " The Trip to the Moon " that
he brings forward this strange paradox. In the moon,
if a flat-nosed child is born, care is taken, lest, when
he grows up, he should perpetuate this abominable de-

^66

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CYRANO DE BERGERAC

formity, to secure him a life-long soprano voice and to
fit him to enter without danger the seraglio of the
Grand Seigneur. Merit is measured by the length of
the nose ; according to the size of the nose one is
placed higher or lower. Without a nose, according to
Cyrano, there can be no valour, no wit, no cleverness,
no passion, nothing of what constitutes man. The
nose is the abode of the soul ; it forms the distinction
between man and the brute, for no animal has a nose
shaped like man's. Ah, Master Savinien Cyrano de
Bergerac ! it seems to me that you are rather too
plainly exemplifying the fable of the fox that had lost
its tail.

I do not know if the worth of the mind and passion
depend upon the shape of the nose. The fact remains
that Cyrano was valiant, clever, passionate, and that is
the best proof he can give in support of his system.
Of course it remains to be ascertained whether he was
valiant, witty, and passionate because he had a big nose,
or whether he had a big nose because he was valiant,
witty, and passionate. Does the hen come from the
egg, or the egg from the hen ? — that is the question.
Let those who are more learned than myself decide.

Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, the owner of that

16^ ■

THE GROTESQUES

prodigious nose, was born in 1620 at the Chateau of
Bergerac in Perigord. His father sent him to be edu-
cated by a poor country priest who took boarders and
brought up, as well as he could, the sons of the coun-
try gentry. Cyrano did not make much progress
under him, for he did not in the least believe in the
teaching of the worthy man, whom he looked upon as
a thoroughly pedantic and perfect Aristotelian ass. It
was enough that his teacher should say a thing was
white for Cyrano to believe that it was black, and do
exactly the contrary of what he was told. It was under
this man, no doubt, that he acquired that horror of
pedants and of all that smacked of the college principal,
which he preserved all his life, and which suggested to
him so many piquant epigrams against the Sidias, what-
ever their gown and their colour, who seek to ascertain,
like that of Theophile de Viau, si odor In porno est forma
aut acc'idens. He constantly refers to their gormandis-
ing propensity, their drunkenness, their awkwardness,
their dirt, their avarice, their crass ignorance, their
stupid pride, their obstinacy, to all their small, shameful
vices, which partake at once of the vices of children
and of old men. He describes in most spirited fashion

their dirty nails, their hands unwashed since the deluge,
_

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CYRANO DE BERGERAC

their greasy^ hair full of vermin, their snuffling noses
always brown with snufF, their tone of superiority,
their ways at once insolent and servile. A sketch of a
Christian brother by Charlet does not surpass his in
accuracy and simplicity. You may be sure that the
Metaphrastes and the Pancraccs of Poquelin are near
relatives of the Sidiases of Theophilc and of the pedants
of Cyrano. They unquestionably have taught the
same class in some provincial college; they have the
same birch in their hand, they talk the same jargon,
they all swear by Aristotle and his learned cabal. The
question of knowing whether one ought to say the
form or the figure of a hat is at least as good as si odor
in porno.

Cyrano complained so much and so frequently to
his father of his master's incapacity that the former, a
worthy country gentleman, who cared much more for
his dogs than for his children, took him away from the
priest, and careless of anything else than good living,
sent the boy alone to Paris at an age when nascent
passions are most to be feared, especially in highly
strung natures like that of young Savinien.

What was to be expected happened, — Bergerac was
carried away with the stream of the mad and turbulent

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youth of that day. He gave himself up to debauch
with the ardour of a lad of eighteen, who sees Paris for
the first time and who has come from out a little
country presbytery, from a quiet, discreet house, sober,
methodical, and silent, almost always half asleep under
the shadow of its grey walnut-trees between the church
and the graveyard, ruled by a doting priest and a blear-
eyed, grumbling servant. Wine and women, those two
delightful things which smile so sweetly upon our
young fancies, very nearly wrecked him completely on
leaving this life of discipline and self-mastery. It was
the days of those handsome Spanish and Italian ad-
venturesses, proud, voluptuous creatures, who loved
with equal passion gold, blood, and perfumes, pale as
amber, supple as the willow, strong as steel, with
slightly arched noses, with lips disdainfully turned up
at the corners and seeming to scorn, eyes moist and
flashing, hair thick and wavy, almost regal hands full
of dimples, slender fingers whiter than the ivory of
their fans. It was the heyday of the beautiful, poetic
courtesan, the day when balconies were scaled, the day
of silken ladders and ballets and masquerades, of that
Spanish gallantry at once grave and extravagant, so
devoted that it was actually stupid, so ardent that it

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CYRANO DE BERGERAC

turned to ferocity, the days of sonnets and society
verses, of great sword-thrusts, deep draughts, and fright-
ful gambling. Men threw their lives away, scattered
their souls to every wind as though they knew not what
to do with them ; every minute they staked their ex-
istence on the cast of a die ; they fought on their own
account ; they served as seconds to others rather than
remain with their arms crossed. A man looked at you
— forthwith a duel ; somebody did not look at you —
another duel ; one man insulted you, another despised
you ; and all that without braggadocio, with an ad-
mirable, free and easy nonchalance, as if it were merely
a question of draining a glass of hippocras. What a
waste of courage ! The making of a hundred thousand
heroes scattered at the corners of squares at night
under some lantern.

Cyrano managed to be called " the Intrepid " by a
society thus constituted ; he, still a youth, just arrived
from Perigord, fresh from the home of a poor country
priest ! It was a splendid start.

It was already the fashion to pretend to be impious
and strong-minded. I will not affirm that Cyrano
indulged in this ridicule ; nevertheless, he was accused
of it, like most of the wits of the day. What served

THE GROTESQUES

to support this accusation were some passages of his
tragedy of " Agrippina," in which atheistic maxims like
the following are openly and vigorously expressed : —

Terentius. And yet thou knowest Rome is monarchical.
That aristocratic now it can no more remain.
And that the Roman eagle will find it hard to soar
When more than one master it has to upbear.
Respect and fear the dread thunder of the gods.

Seja?ius. The bolt in winter never strikes the earth ;
So for six months at least I may laugh at gods ;
When these are past, I make my peace with heav'n.

Terentius. All thy projects the gods shall overthrow.

Sejanus. A little smoking incense atones for many deeds.

Terentius. Who fears them —

Sejanus. Fears naught. These creatures of terror,

These splendid nothings men ignorantly adore.
Thirsting for the blood of animals slain.
These gods whom man has made, who made not man.
These absurd upholders of the strongest states, —
I tell you, Terentius, who fears them, fears naught.

Terentius. But if they existed not, could this great globe —

Sejanus. Nay, if they did exist, would I still live? —

And this other passage in which the immortality of
the soul is denied : —

Agrippina. You are then proof to a sight so sad ?

Sejanus. 'Tis only death, and no wise moves me.

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CYRANO DE BERGERAC

Jgrippina. But the uncertainty as to what is after death —
Sejanus. Was I unhappy before I ever was ?

One hour after death the vanished soul

Shall be what it was an hour ere life.

But all this proves nothing. It is not the poet who
says these things; they are spoken by the characters
whom he has put on the stage, a distinction which it is
easy to make and which people never will make, I
know not why. In the same way most thoroughly
zealous Christians who had just communicated at
Easter, and had carefully abstained from eating meat on
Fridays and Saturdays, have been accused of irreligion
and atheism. Evil-mindedness profits by all this. A
few verses treacherously separated from the context
are quoted, and forthwith an honest man, true-hearted
and a genius, is proclaimed an atheist and a free-
thinker by obscure pedants who ought to have a whole
alphabet branded on their shoulders, and who, from the
mud in which they lie, never cease to croak at every
renown, filling in literature the office of the sworn
insulters of the Roman triumphs. Cyrano has put the
maxims I have quoted in the mouth of Sejanus, a
scoundrel rotten with vice, one of those monstrous
colossi of infamy who terrified the world in the days of

173

THE GROTESQUES

the Roman decadence. It is quite natural that he
should speak thus ; atheism is but a trifle to such a
man. Besides, he is a pagan, and the gods he insults
are but demons, according to all the fathers of the
Church. To maintain that there are no gods is
thoroughly orthodox, and it seems to me strange that
a Christian poet should be accused of atheism because
he makes a pagan deny the divinity of Jupiter. It is
one more anomaly to be added to the immense reper-
tory' of the eccentricities of the human mind. Besides,
it has always been so. Byron takes for the heroes of
his poems corsairs and murderers ; so people insist that
he himself is a murderer and a vampire. There are
many men who are not yet quite certain that the
author of " Han d'Islande" and of the " Condemned
Man's Last Day " did not eat human flesh and did
not die on the scaffold. This method of attributing to
the poet what he makes his creations say would involve
hanging high all tragic poets, for they have committed
more murders, poisonings, rapes, and adulteries, they
have done more cruel, impious, and rascally things than
the most abominable wretches in the world, and in this
respect the Classicists, in spite of that most gentle
horror of blood which they exhibit on the production

174

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

of every nevy play, have not the least right to accuse
the Romanticists. In order to give an idea of the
intelligence of the cabal formed against Cyrano, it will
be sufficient to relate this trait, which is worthy of a
modern cabal : — Some worthy townsmen, dolts of that
day, went to a performance of " Agrippina," perfectly
convinced that unless they caused it to fail, the whole
social structure would infallibly be destroyed. They
allowed all the scandalous passages to pass because
they did not understand them, and they looked at
each other with their big frog's -eyes and twisted
their hats between their fingers with a rather dis-
mayed look, awaiting the signal to hiss ; but when
Sejanus, having made up his mind to murder Tiberius,
says, " Come, let us strike the host ! " the boors began
to yell and hiss like asps, and to call aloud, "Ah, the
poetaster ! the beast ! the wicked man ! the atheist !
the Huguenot ! Just hear how he speaks of the
Blessed Sacrament ! Come, let him be burned without
loss of time."

In spite of these pious suggestions, Bergerac was not
burned alive ; the days of Stephen Dolet had gone by.
But many have perished at the pile for no better a rea-
son, for just as trifling a motive. Theophile de Viau,

THE GROTESQUES

as you are aware, was executed in effigy, and spent
long years in prison.

Oh, man, the only animal that looks up to heaven, I
really do not know how you came not to walk on all-
fours !

Cyrano met in Paris a comrade of his who had been
a schoolmate with him at the worthy country priest's,
and who thereafter became his most intimate friend.
He was called Le Bret. He was serving in the regi-
ment of the Guards, in the company commanded by
M. de Carbon Castel-Jaloux. He forced (he says so
himself) our young debauchee to enter it with the rank
of cadet. Cyrano soon brought himself to notice by his
boldness and his skill with the sword. Duels at that
time were considered the readiest, and indeed the only
way of showing one's courage. He drew attention so
very much to himself and in so very few days, thanks
to the number of encounters which he had and the
fashion in which he came out of them, that in this
regiment, composed almost exclusively of Gascons, he
was thereafter known as " the Demon of Bravery ; "
and in spite of the little trust usually placed in the hy-
perboles of the children of the Garonne, no one, this
time, thought the nickname at all exaggerated, and it

4:db4: :!: 4: :!: ^ :!: :!: ^^^tfctfc^^tlbrbdb^::!: ^ ^^

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

stuck to him during tlie rest of his life. He literally
counted his days by his combats, and even counted
more combats than days, despatching sometimes two
or three affairs of the sort in a single morning. It was
not only in duels that he gained this reputation for in-
trepidity, but in more general affairs, of which I shall
relate one which appears almost fabulous, which brought
him a great deal of honour and gave him a very good
position at court and in the town. It reads like one
of those old romances of chivalry full of great sword-
strokes that cut giants down to the belt. It was by
the moat of the gate of Nesle that this battle, worthy
of the Cid Campeador, took place. Cyrano was with
one of his friends. A body of one hundred men —
here one hundred men does not mean many men, but
one hundred individuals — struck and insulted him.
He drew his sword without being in the least degree
terrified by their number, dashed upon them, laid out a
couple of them on the spot, wounded seven others so
severely that they never recovered, and drove the rest
before him like a flock. This encounter won him the
more glory that it was his friend and not he who had
been insulted ; and it must be said in Cyrano's honour
that he was ardent and prompt to serve those whom
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THE GROTESQUES

he loved, that he had not very many quarrels on his
own account, and that it was rather as a second that
he fought than for himself. M. de Bourgogne, colonel
of the Prince of Conti's infantry regiment, and several
other noblemen no less distinguished as experts in mat-
ters of bravery, witnessed this superhuman battle and
spoke most highly of it in society. The illustrious
Cavois, Brissailles, an ensign in the guards of his Royal
Highness, M. de Zedde, M. Duret de Montchenin,
one of the bravest of men, who served him and were
served by him on some occasions permissible at that
time to people of their profession, praised his courage
as being equal to that of the most valiant of men.

We have dwelt much upon the audacity and rash-
ness of Cyrano, first, because since the days of Horace,
and even earlier, poets have acquired a thoroughly well
deserved reputation for cowardice, and we are very glad
therefore to find one who is brave and manly in spite
of his being a poet ; next, because his audacity and
rashness did not forsake Cyrano when he laid aside the
sword for the pen. The same characteristic of extrava-
gant and witty boldness is met with in all his work; in
every sentence he is fighting with reason. Reason in
vain stands on guard and holds itself well behind the

7^8

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

hilt of its rapier j fantasy has always in reserve some
secret thrust with which it pierces her and stretches her
out on the sward. In less than a minute, like Capitan
Chasteaufort, it has advanced and retreated, surprised
the forte of the blade, cut under the arm, marked every
beat, used a flanconnade, thrust under; it has lunged in
tierce under the sword, in carte over the left foot,
feinted inside and outside, cut and slashed, shaken,
gained ground, engaged, volted, parried, made the
riposte, carted, passed, and killed, not more than thirty
men, but more than thirty really new and philosophical
ideas. The thrusts our gentleman makes use of are
exaggerated metaphors, over-refined comparisons, plavs
upon words, quibbles, conundrums, conceits, witticisms,
low jests, far-fetched preciosity, the quintessence of
sentiment, — whatever, in a word, is excessive in the
bad taste of Spain, ingenious and flashy in the Italian,
cold and mannered in the French. Of course, unhappy
reason cannot often have the better of such an adver-
sary ; nevertheless it sometimes issues victorious from
this unequal duel, and one regrets that it does not oftener
have the advantage over its fantastic enemy.

For the rest, Cyrano belongs thoroughly to his age.
The mad audacity which marks both his thoughts and

179

THE GROTESQUES

his acts was not uncommon at that time. The Mata-
more, or hectoring bully, a delightful type which has
vanished from our comedies, just as the types of the
Scapins and the Lisettes are going to vanish, or have
vanished as I write, was in reality but a slightly over-
drawn portrait. There were plenty of these nose-
slitters with turned up moustachioes, shoulders well
back, chests well out, cloak thrown over the shoulder,
broad-brimmed hat pulled down over the eyes, legs like
compasses, armed with a rapier as long as a day of star-
vation, who fought with those who trod on their shadow,
scattered troops of horse by the mere wind of their
sword-cut, and sent word to humankind not to dare to
be alive three days hence under pain of having to do
with them. Listen to the Hector of the stage: —

" Who are the rascals who are making a noise
yonder ? — If I come down, I will let loose the Fates.
Do you not know that in these hours of stillness I
order everything to be silent save my renown ? Do
you not know that my sword is made of one half of
the shears of Atropos ? Do you not know that when
I come in it is by a breach ; when I emerge it is from
battle? — that when I ascend it Is to a throne; when I

descend it is to the duelling-ground? — that if I lie
_

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

down, that means a man laid out ; if I go forward, I
am conquering ; if I draw back, it is to spring forward
better; if I play, it is at spoil the king; that if I win,
it is a battle; that if I lose, it is my enemies; if I
write, it is a challenge; if I read, it is a sentence
of death; finally if 1 speak, it is by the mouth of
a gun ? "

And now listen to the city Hector : —

" Well, my stout man, I have at last seen you. My
eyes have travelled at great length upon you, but as 1
am not everybody, permit me to hand down your por-
trait to posterity, which one day will be very glad to
know what manner of man you were. First, then, it
shall be known that nature, which stuck a head on your
chest, expressly refrained from putting a neck to it so
as to guarantee it against the evil prognostications of
your horoscope ; that your soul is so gross that it might
well serve as a body to a somewhat slim person ; that
you have what in men is called the face so very much
below the shoulders that you look like Saint Denis
carrying his head in his hands. But good heavens !
What do I see.? You appear to me to be more swelled
even than usual. Your legs and your head are already
so closely bound by their extension to the circumference

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THE GROTESQUES

of the globe that you are, that you are nothing but a
balloon. Perhaps you fancy that I am making fun of
vou. You are right. I will even assure you that if the
blows of a stick could be seen like writing, you could
read my letter with your shoulders. Be not astonished
at my way of proceeding, for the vast extent of your
stoutness makes me incline so much to the belief that
you are an earth that I would willingly plant wood upon
you to see how it would fare. Think you that because
a man cannot thrash the whole of you in twenty-four
hours and can compass but one of your shoulder-
blades in a single day, I propose to intrust the care
of your death to the executioner ? Oh, no, I shall
myself be your death, and you would be already done
for were I only free from an affection of the spleen,
for the cure of which the doctors have ordered me to
take some four or five pinches more of your imperti-
nence ; but as soon as I shall have exhausted diver-
sions and shall be tired of laughing, you may be certain
that I shall send you word forbidding you to reckon
yourself among living things."

The man who speaks thus is no other than our hero,
Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, who has quite the man-
ners and the style of Captain Fracasse ; and the one

CYRx^NO DE BERGERAC

whom he is thus addressing is Montfleury the actor, of
the Hotel de Bourgogne, Moliere, in "The Versailles
Impromptu," in the scene where he takes off the actors
of the rival troupe, also alludes to the hippopotamus-
like size of Montfleury : —

*♦ And who is it that plays the parts of kings with you ? "
*' Here is an actor who occasionally takes them."
'* What, that well made young fellow ? You are joking.
You must have a king stout and fat enough for four people ; a
king, by Jove! who has a proper size of corporation, a king
of vast circumference, who can fill a throne suitably. A pretty
object a king of handsome figure would be! "

Let it not be supposed that this is merely a joke.
The actor who had thus been warned, having dared to
appear on the stage, Cyrano shouted to him, from the
centre of the pit, to withdraw, else he might make his
will and consider himself dead. Montfleury, who knew
very well that he was a man to do just what he said,
obeyed at once, and it was only a month later that our
swashbuckler allowed him to return to the stage and to
continue to bellow with his bull voice the lines ascribed
to kings and tyrants.

This prank was no doubt prompted by some dispute
which had occurred between the poet and the actor dur-

THE GROTESQUES

ing the rehearsals of " Agrippina ; " perhaps also it was
mere caprice.

Cyrano, being at the siege of Mousson, received a
musket wound in the body, and later, at the siege of
Arras in 1640, a sword-thrust in the throat. He was
then twenty. He began early, and many a brave sol-
dier serves all his life without being lucky enough to be
as honourably wounded. Nevertheless, the incommodity
caused by these two serious wounds, the frequency of
the duels which his reputation brought him, the priva-
tions which he had had to endure during these two
campaigns, his love of study, his independent spirit,
and the little hope he had of promotion — for he had no
patron — combined to disgust him with the service.
He abandoned wholly the profession of war, which re-
quires a man to give himself up to it completely and
leaves him no freedom of mind or action. Marshal
Gassion, who liked brave and clever men, had indeed
sought to attach him to himself, on the reports which
had been made to him of Cyrano's fight at the Nesle
gate ; but Cyrano, in spite of the solicitations of his
friends, had not accepted these advances, so much did
he fear that his gratitude would compromise his liberty.
He was naturally a very disinterested man, and besides

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CYRANO DE BERGERAC

cared as little as may be for the people of his day, and
did not think that the servitude consequent on familiar-
ity with and the patronage of the great was sufficiently
compensated for by the favours and advancement which
might result therefrom. This temper of his made him
neglect some very useful acquaintances, whom the
reverend Mother Marguerite, who held him in very
special esteem, wished to have him make and cultivate.
However, in order to satisfy his friends, he consented
to have a patron at court, and chose the Duke of
Arpajon, to whom he dedicated his works. This noble-
man's protection was not of much use to him; Cyrano,
indeed, complains of having been abandoned by him
during his illness, and had no reason to be satisfied with
him in any way. Nevertheless, he remained with him
until the night when, returning from the Duke's man-
sion, he was struck on the head by a piece of wood
thrown down inadvertently. This wound caused his
death, which occurred in the country, at the home of
his cousin de Cyrano, whose conversation he was very
fond of, and to whose house — through a fancy for a
change of air which precedes death and which is an al-
most certain symptom of it with nearly all patients —
he was carried five days only before he gave up the

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THE GROTESQUES

ghost. His death happened in 1655. Cyrano was
then thirty-five years old. He died like a Christian,
having long since given up wine and women, and
confined himself to excessively simple food.

Cyrano's character was very amiable and bright, and
his conversation abounded in witty sallies. He there-
fore had many close connections and friendships, and
was fortunate enough to be beloved by every one up
to the day of his death, and even after it by a few.
Besides his childhood's friend, Le Bret, he had most
pleasant intercourse with many others, all brave, clever,
or well-born men, such as de Prade, who was at once
a poet, a brave man, and a scholar; M. de Chavagne,
who always hastened to meet those whom he desired
to oblige with such pleasant impetuosity ; the illustri-
ous councillor de Longueville-Gontier, who had
every quality that makes a perfect man ; de Saint-
Gilles, in whom the deed always followed the desire
to do service ; de Ligniere, whose work gives proof
of such exquisitely fine inspiration ; de Chateaufort,
endowed with admirable memory and judgment, and
who so happily applied the numberless fine things he
knew ; des Billettes, who at twenty-three knew every-
thing that others are proud to know at fifty ; de la
1^6

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

Morliere, whose manners were so Hne and who apolo-
gised in such charming fashion ; the Count of Brienne,
whose wit corresponded so well to his high birth ; and
the Abbe of Villeloin, so learned, and producing in-
defatigably so many good and useful works. This
enumeration must also include the famous mathema-
tician Rohaut, who thought highly of Cyrano and bore
him much friendship ; Moliere, who prized his talents
sufficiently to rob him of one of his best scenes ;
and Gassendi, who consented to admit him to his les-
sons, by which he profited. Gassendi, who was the
preceptor of Chapelle, had also Moliere and Bernier
for pupils, lucky teacher that he was !

The right of great geniuses to take their property
where they find it has been much discussed recently,
and a great deal of nonsense talked about it. It has
been said that it is not robbing, but conquering.
Ennius's dung-hill has been quoted, the pearls in which
belonged by right to any Virgil that was ready to take
them. It has been claimed that it was doing much
honour to poor Ennius that Virgil should take the
trouble to polish, to set, and to flash in the eyes of
people the rough gems hidden in Ennius's mud ; that
such robbing was really rather creation ; only this con-

THE GROTESQUES

dition was insisted upon, that the robbed should also

be murdered — which is nice literary morality. All

that is very pleasant and convenient for barren brains,

and I am not surprised that such a paradox has found

defenders; but, whatever versemakers may say, I am

fully of Cyrano's opinion, that penalties more rigorous

than those decreed against highway robbers should be

established for plagiarists, because, glory being more

precious than a horse, a coat, or even than gold, those

who acquire it through books which they compose out

of what they have stolen from others are like thieves

who dress themselves at the expense of those whom

they have robbed; and if each one had liberty to say

only what had not been said, libraries would be less

large, less embarrassing and more useful, and man's

life, although very short, would be almost sufficient to

read and know every good thing, while, as it is, in order

to find one passable thing it is necessaiy to read a

hundred thousand that are worthless or that have been

read elsewhere many a time, — which is a useless and

unpleasant expenditure of time.

We do not mean to say, however, that a writer

should not draw Inspiration from the works of the

masters in general, or from that one of the masters
_

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CYRANO DE BERGERAC

with whose talent he has most secret affinity. It
would be very much as if it were to be insisted upon
that any man who follows an art or a science should
have little by little intuitively divined the principles
for himself. That would be unreasonable. Every
one is entitled to profit by the master's experience,
to start from the point which he has reached, to make
use of his processes and his way of expressing himself;
but to no more than this. To take a figure, a word, a
sentence, a page, is just as much stealing as picking a
pocket, and to call it by another name implies a very
high state of civilisation.

You have doubtless heard that the galley scene in
" The Tricks of Scapin " was imitated from Cyrano de
Bergerac, but it is not likely that you took the trouble
to look it up where it is — in " The Tricked Pedant."
Now read what follows, and in spite of all the respect
due to the great Moliere, tell me if it Is not the most
barefaced plagiarism possible. Besides, this is not the
only plagiarism which Moliere is chargeable with. If
the old sketches of plays and the Italian writers of
tales, such as the " Facetious Nights " of Signer
Straparola, for instance, were examined, the master of
the French stage would be found to have a very small

THE GROTESQUES ^

share of invention; nor would Shakespeare be much
better off. A very singular fact, which the investi-
gations of science daily estabHsh more clearly, is that
the men whom it has been agreed to call geniuses
have, properly speaking, invented nothing, and that
all their invention and their ideas are generally found
in the works of mediocre, obscure, or wretched authors.
What is the cause of the difference, then ? Style and
character, which after all are the only things that
constitute the great artist ; for everybody may invent
a poetic incident or idea, but very few are capable of
carrying it out and expressing it so as to be understood
of others. Here is the scene from " The Tricked
Pedant " : —

Corbinelli (Scapin). Alas! All is lost! Your son is
dead.

Granger (Geronte). My son dead ? Are you mad ?

Corbinelli. No, I am quite serious. Your son, in truth,
is not dead, but he has fallen into the hands of the Turlvs.

Granger. Into the hands of the Turks! Support me, — I
expire.

Corbinelli, Scarcely had w^e entered the boat to cross over
from the gate of Nesle to the University quay —

Granger. And what were you going to do at the Univer-
sity, you ass ?

190

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

CorbinellL My master, remembering the order you gave
him to purchase some trifle rare in Venice and not very costly
in Paris to present to his uncle, thought that a dozen bundles
of wood being cheap, and there being none in Europe as
pretty as those made here, he had better take some to Venice.
That is why we were going to the University — to buy some.
But scarcely had we left the bank behind us, when we were
taken by a Turkish galley.

Granger. Yet, by the twisted trumpet of Triton, the
marine god, who ever heard it said that Saint-Cloud was
on the sea, and that there were galleys, pirates, and reefs
there ?

Corbinelli. That is what makes the thing still more re-
markable. And although they have not been seen in France
save in that one spot, who knows whether they did not
come here from Constantinople between two tides ?

Paquier. Yes, indeed, sir, for the Topinambous, who
live four or five hundred leagues beyond the earth, once came
to Paris, and only the other day the Poles carried off the
Princess Mary in broad daylight from Nevers House, without
any one daring to oppose them.

Corbinelli. But they were not satisfied with that, — they
proposed to stab your son to death —

Paquier. What ! Before he could confess ?

Corbinelli. Unless he gave money for his ransom.

Granger. Ah, the wretches ! That was done to instil
fear into his young breast.

191

THE GROTESQUES

Paquier. That is right. The Turks are very careful not
to take Christian money, because it bears a cross.

CorbineUi. My master could find nothing to say but,
"Go and find my father and tell him — " His tears,
forthwith choking his speech, told me better than he could
have done himself of the affection he bears to you.

Granger. But what the devil was he doing in a Turk's
galley ? A Turk's ! Perge !

CorbineUi. These pitiless pirates would not have granted
me leave to come and find you, if I had not cast myself at the
knees of the one who appeared to be the most important
among them. Oh, Mr. Turk, — I said to him, — allow me
to go and inform his father, who will straightway send you a
ransom.

Granger. You ought not to have spoken of ransom.
They must have made fun of you.

CorbineUi. On the contrary, on hearing the word "ran-
som " he became more peaceful. ** Go," he said to me, " but
if you are not back shortly, I shall fetch your master out of his
college, and I shall hang the whole three of you at our ship's
yard-arm." I was so afraid of hearing anything worse, or that
the devil should carry me off, because I was in company with
these excommunicated people that I promptly sprang into a
skiff to come and inform you of the dreadful particulars
of this affair.

Granger. What the devil was he doing in a Turk's
galley >

192

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

Paquier. And it is some ten years perhaps since he went
to confession !

Granger. But do you think he has quite made up his mind
to go to Venice ?

Corbinclli. He thinks of nothing else.

Granger. Well, the evil may yet be cured. Paquier,
give me the receptacle of the instruments of immorality.
Scriptorium scilicet.

Corbinclli. What do you propose to do with them?

Granger. To write a letter to that Turk.

Corbinelli. To what purpose ?

Granger. To tell them to send me back my son, because
I want him. Besides, they must excuse youth, which is sub-
ject to many errors ; and if he allows himself to be caught
again, I promise them, on the word of a doctor, no lorrger to
weary their ears about him.

Corbinelli. They will laugh at you, by my faith.

Granger. Go and tell them this from me : that I am
ready to bind myself before a notary to return without a
ransom the very first one of their company who may fall into
my hands. The devil ! What the devil was he going to do
in that galley ? Or tell them that if they do not send him
back, I shall go and complain to the courts. As soon as they
have set him at liberty, waste no time in returning, for I need
you both.

Corbinelli. All that is sheer nonsense.

Granger. Good heavens ! And am I to be ruined at my

13 193

^tLtJL, ri^ ri/t •!• »!/• rt^ rl* »A% «i« >A*«1« fi«»il»l« •!• *i> il**!**!* fl**!!*!*

THE GROTESQUES

age ? Go with Paquier. Take what is left of the money
which I gave you for expenses only a week ago (to go into
a galley without any purpose !) ; take the change of that coin.
Ah, you wretched son of mine ! you cost me more gold than
you weigh. Pay the ransom, and what is left, use it for
pious purposes. In a Turk's galley ! Well, that will do.
Be off. And here, you wretch, tell me what the devil he
was going to do in that galley ! Go, and fetch from my
cupboard that worn doublet which my father gave up wear-
ing in the year of the great winter.

Corbinelli. What is the ^ood of all this nonsense ? You
must come to the point. His ransom will take at least a
hundred pistoles.

Granger. A hundred pistoles ! Ah, my son, would I
could give my life to preserve yours 1 A hundred pistoles !
Corbinelli, go and tell him to let himself be made a prisoner
without a word. But he is not to be downcast, for I shall
make them repent it.

Corbinelli. Miss Genevotte was no fool when she refused
a while ago to marry you because she was assured that you
were quite capable, if she happened to be a slave in Turkey,
of leaving her there.

Granger. I shall prove them liars. To go off in a
Turk's galley ! By all the devils in hell, what was he
going to do in that galley ? Oh, galley, galley ! You
have put my purse in the galleys.

Paquier. That is what comes of going to galleys ! Who

194

•I* 4* •!« 'I/* 4* 4»4'«^^4;4»4»4;4;4;4;4;4;4j4»4««lj4»^

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

the devil urged him to do it ? If he had had the patience to
wait another week, the king might have sent him to the gal-
leys in such good company that the Turks would not have
taken him.

Corbinelli. Our dominie forgets that the Turks will eat
him up.

Paquier. You are quite safe, as far as that goes. Mo-
hammedans do not eat pig.

Granger. There, be off with you. Take all my worldly
goods !

Do you not think that this is abusing very strangely
the privilege of a man of genius ? And this scene is
not the only one which Moliere took from Cyrano.
That most amusing scene in " The Tricks of Scapin,"
in which the lively Zerbinette tells Geronte of the
stratagem which has been made use of to draw money
from him is in full in that same " Tricked Pedant."
It is copied even more closely than the other, and
every part of it is to be found there, even the end-
less " ha ha ! " and " he he ! " of the adventuress.
I know not what the Granier-Cassagnacs of that
day have said about it. " The Tricked Pedant " is
remarkable, among other peculiarities, as being the
first comedy written in prose, and the first in which
a peasant speaks in his own dialect. It is not the

195

•1**4* *4» 'k* *=* *&• •i^ '&* 'i* •^^ •£« J^»i««l»»l««l*»l>«*l*aA«»l*c4« cX* cJ»«#»

THE GROTESQUES

only thing that men of great reputation have borrowed
from the obscure Cyrano de Bergerac. His "Trip to
the Moon," and his comic " History of the States,
Empires of the Sun," suggested to Fontenelle the idea
of his " Worlds," to Voltaire that of " Micromegas,"
to Swift that of " Gulliver," and perhaps to Montgol-
fier the idea of the balloon. For among other means
of reaching the moon or the sun, Cyrano mentions
this one, to wit : " to fill a hollow and very thin globe
with a very subtle air or smoke of weight less than that
of the atmosphere." That suggestion made, there is
not much left to be done, and the real inventor of
the balloon is, in my opinion, Cyrano de Bergerac,
and not any one else. Amid the ingenious paradoxes
and the most far-fetched, philosophical ideas, amid the
exaggerations of the most frantic and adventurous gen-
ius, it is easy to see that Cyrano was acquainted with
the exact sciences, and that he knew physics perfectly,
and Descartes' svstem from beginning to end. He
had also written a " History of the Spark," in which,
in the same fashion that he proved that the moon is
inhabitable, he proved that stones feel, that plants
are endowed with instinct and brutes with reasoning
powers ; but a thief ransacked his box while he was

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CYRANO DE BERGERAC

ill, and unfortunately- that history has never been
found. If we are to believe his friend, M. Le
Bret, it was superior to all his other works, and he
bitterly deplores its loss.

The works of Cyrano consist, first, of a collection
of letters on different subjects. These letters are a
sort of amplification, in which the quaintness of the
style rivals the novelty of the Ideas. They are written
in the most highly developed euphuistic style, but they
are full of brilliancy, and of prodigious fertility of
invention. They are his juvenilia and the first per-
formances of his pen. Next, " The Tricked Pedant,"
a comedy in five acts, in prose ; " The Death of
Agrippina," a tragedy in a much more serious tone
than the rest of his works, written in verse of a
vigour equal to Corneille's, and in which there are
many passages which approach the sublime irony of
*'Nicomedes." The following extract may serve as a
sample : —

Tiberias. My son's wife conspiring against mc !

Livilla. Yes, I, wife to thy son, daughter to thy brother.
Was about to stab thee, my uncle and father.
To unite a hundred crimes in one, I would have the renown
Of committing a deed for which there is no name.

197

THE GROTESQUES

I, your niece, daughter-in-law, cousin, daughter,

I, bound to you by all family ties,

I wished to profane with the stroke of my vengeance

Every degree of relationship and of connection

To violate in your breast both nature and law,

I alone cause all your relatives to rebel.

And show that a tyrant in his own family

May find an execudoner, though he have but a daughter.

I have slain my husband, and would have done worse.

So that I might no longer be wife to your son ;

For I had admitted your son to my couch

Only, through my children, to be mistress of your race.

And all your blood to shed as I pleased

Once it was compelled to pass through my breast.

Finally, "The Trip to the Moon," — the first part
of which, wherein are expressed divers conjectures upon
what the little night-sun may really be, is in some
respects marvellously like the famous " Ballad of the
Dot on the I," — and the " Comic History of the
Sun."

Although quite young, and notwithstanding his lack
of taste, Cyrano by dint of fire, boldness, and wit, had
almost found favour with Boileau, who said of him, —

" I prefer Bergerac and his burlesque boldness

To the verses in which Motin labours and is cold."

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

These two verses have done more to make him known
than all that he has written himself. Just see what
human fortune is, and how difficult it is to be a man
of genius ! f'or if a man of genius means an inventor,
a man who is original both in matter and expression,
no one on earth is so well entitled to the appellation as
Cyrano de Bergerac ; and yet no one thinks of him
save as an ingenious and amusing madman.

199

George de Scudery

4;db 4; :!: tl: ^ ^ ^ :*: ir 4?^^tl?:l?tl? tirtir ^drtl? ^ tl:^

THE GROrES^L/ES

George de Scudery

SCUDERY is unquestionably a very wretched
poet, and an equally wretched prose-writer.
He thoroughly deserves the forgetfulness into
which he has sunk, and it is difficult to come
across a more colossal and indigestible lot of nonsense
than his collected works. Only men accustomed to
that kind of research can have any idea of the deter-
mined courage required to enable one to read such
monotonous trash. When I remember that I have
read from beginning to end " Alaric, or Rome Con-
quered," it makes me shudder. An epic poem in ten
cantos, which has at most eleven thousand verses, as
says in the preface, and in the most free and easy
fashion, that great braggart, George de Scudery. The
one thing that somewhat consoles me for the trouble I
have taken is that I am the only man who in this year
of our Lord 1843 ^^^ ^^^^ ^" ^P'^ poem through, —
and that is no slight satisfaction. However, weari-

203

THE GROTESQUES

some as are poets of this sort, I confess that I prefer
them to those of our day whom it is the fashion to
praise. I prefer a barbarous and ridiculous poem like
" Alaric," for instance, which is full of incongruous
and amusing inventions, to those wretched translations
and paraphrases of Greek and Latin authors which are
so awkwardly made and which lack the understanding
of antiquity which inspires the verses of that time.
Besides, Scudery is a splendid type of a class of writers
now vanished, and it is for this reason that I have taken
him up. He is the braggart, the boaster, the Captain
Fracasse, the Chasteaufort of the sacred vale, a true
laurel chewer, who cuts his pen with his rapier and
seems in every sentence to challenge his reader. In
this respect he is somewhat related to Cyrano, but
there are several essential differences between them.
The first, which suffices to open a gulf between them,
is that Bergerac was a man of prodigious wit ; the
second is that scarce a day passed that Bergerac did
not go on the ground, and that he carried into action
all his rodomontades. In Scudery there runs through
his swashbuckler character a vein of pedantry and ill-
breeding which is not found in Cyrano. Scudery is
more shiny about the seams, hungrier, dirtier, more

204

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

ridiculous, — more a man of letters, in a word, — than
the author of the " Trip to the Moon," and I do not
think that Moliere stole anything from him.

This literary Hector was born about 1601 at Havre,
where his father was king's lieutenant. He belonged
to Apt in Provence, and it was there that he spent his
earliest years ; there also that he made the acquaintance
of young Catherine de Rouyere, whom he fell in love
with. The first verses of his which we possess were
written for this lady. It is always the way : at the
bottom of any poet's vocation, whether he be a good
one or a bad one, there is love for some woman. It is
easily understood. The poet, however classical he may
be, requires a more accessible and less vaporous muse
than one of the nine old maids perched on double-
headed Parnassus.

George at first embraced the profession of arms and
served in the regiment of French Guards ; then, weary-
ing of that business, he began to work for the stage.
He made his debut with " Lygdamon and Lydias, or
the Likeness." It is a tragi-comedy, neither worse
nor better than the tragl-comedles written at that time.
At the beginning there is a rather pretty scene, from
which we shall make a few extracts. The subject is

205

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THE GROTESQUES

drawn from Honore d'Urfe's novel " Astraea," the
fashionable novel of the day, from which more plays
were then extracted than are now drawn from the tales
of M. Michel Masson. Next he produced " The
Deceiver Punished " and many other plays up to the
number of sixteen between the years 1631 and 1644.

Lygdamon, Sylvia's rejected lover, opens the scene
with a monologue, in which he discusses the important
question whether he shall end his sad existence by
means of a rapier or a sword, whether he shall throw
himself from a rock or drown himself; whereupon
comes in fair Sylvia, very thoughtful and preoccupied.

Lygdamon. This time I have caught you dreaming.

Sylvia. The enamel of the flowers alone entertained me.
I was dreaming lilce those whose minds are blank.

Lygdamon. Your complexion, which I worship, is of finer
roses.
And your mind works only upon great things.

Sylvia. It is true ; I admire the height of these trees.

Lygdamon. Admire my love, greater a thousand times.

Sylvia. How agreeable is the shade of this dark forest !

Lygdamon. That is where your coldness is preserved, by
the shade.

Sylvia. I have never seen anything so fair as the skies.

Lygdamon. What ! does your mirror not reflect your eyes ?

206

JU •!* rit ri/* *A* >i* tit* rJ/< «A« (JU rtt «j|«»|* «!• »§« vf* rL, »1* riv r|* fl« t§% tft r§%

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

Sylvia. Hqw charming is the sound of this purling brook !

Lygdamon. Can you behold it without thinking of my tears ?

Sylvia. Cooling zephyrs I seek within these meads.

Lygdamon. You owe that pleasure to the breath of my sighs.

Sylvia. How numberless the herbs and blooms that diaper
these swards !

Lygdamon. Their number is less than that of my pains.

Sylvia. Carnations and lilies blend together here.

Lygdamon. Ay, on your face, but on my own marigolds.

Sylvia. How many different roads pierce the surrounding
woods !

Lygdamon, There are as many crosses to my love,

Sylvia. That little butterfly never leaves me.

Lygdamon. So does my heart accompany your steps.

Sylvia. How sweet to my ears is the song of the birds !
What tones and harmonies ! List to the marvel !

Lygdamon. Alas, fair Sylvia ! a god makes them sing
From whom you fly so you may not content me.

Sylvia. I beg you, Lygdamon, make me to know him.

Lygdamon. So you know not what you give birth to ?

Sylvia. I am chaste, and no child have borne as yet.

Lygdamon. Yes, you have.

Sylvia. Name him.

Lygdamon. By all called Love.

For a man who was but now about to kill himself,
this is surely lively and witty enough. No doubt the
wit is somewhat far-fetched, but the motive of the

207

THE GROTESQUES

scene is quite poetic. The lover who holds to his one
idea, spite of all the indifferent things which his mis-
tress talks of to prevent his speaking of his love for
her, and who succeeds in fitting to his design the very
expressions which are to draw him away from it, —
such a lover is an ingenious find.

If we are to believe the author, this tragi-comedy
was most successful. " Lygdamon, which I wrote on
leaving the Guards, and in my first youth, met with a
success which surpassed both my hopes and its merits.
It was performed thrice running before the whole court
at Fontainebleau, and whether that illustrious society
excused a soldier's mistakes, or accounted these mis-
takes pleasant sins, this much is certain, that the
points touched a hundred illustrious hearts, and that
having praised highly a thing which was little worthy
of it," etc. Our Hector continues at some length in
this fashion and praises all his plays, one after an-
other, with the most admirable effrontery. " We now
come at last," he says, " to that blessed disguised
prince who so long delighted and charmed the whole
court. Never did a work of this sort create so great a
sensation, and never did a violent work last so long.
The men all went to see the plav wherever it was per-

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

/brmed, the women all knew its stanzas by heart, and
there are yet to be met with many of the best people
who maintain that I have never done anything finer,
so greatly did this sham enchanter enchant everybody."
Every one of his plays has its own particular merit :
one has drawn tears over and over again, not only from
the eyes of the common people, but from the fairest
eyes in the world ; another would have been no less
successful if the actor who played the leading part had
not died ; a third did not succeed very well, but when
published it attained the popularity which had been
counted on for it on the stage ; a fourth suffered some-
what from the mischance of antagonistic constellations ;
however diverting it was and however fine the subject,
it was but faintly praised ; on the other hand, " Love
the Tyrant," which came immediately afterwards, fully
compensated for this slight check, for the whole court
and with it the whole of France spoke in such eulo-
gious fashion of this work that George de Scudery,
modest and shy writer that he is, dares not reproduce
what was said, so laudatory and glorious was it. " As
for the great '■ Arminius,' it is my masterpiece that I
offer you in this play, the most highly praised work
that ever came from my pen ; for whether we consider

14 2og

THE GROTESQUES

the story, the manners, the sentiments, or the versifi-
cation, it is certain that I have never done anything
greater, more beautiful, or more exact ; and if my
labours could have deserved a crown, it is upon this last
work only that I would found my claim. Therefore
It is with this poem that I close the series of my
writings of this kind, and henceforth you shall have no
more such from me unless the sovereign power com-
pels me. It is time that I should rest, and that having
reached the end of the career of which I spoke in the
beginning of this discourse, I should look at those who
pursue it after me, that I should applaud them to excite
them to glory, and show them the recompense which
awaits them."

At the beginning of " The Deceiver Punished "
appears the portrait of the great man, with this some-
what presumptuous inscription :

" Both poet and warrior,
Laurels shall he wear."

Which caused some who did not admire him or his
verse, to say : —

" Both as poet and Gascon,
Shall he be beaten."

tin •4* "(• *A« M« (l* 'i'* "1^ *i* *4* *4«'l*'¥>*!«*f*'i«*j«*i**S**'!**i* <4« *f«r!«

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

His arms appear below. They bear a lion ascendant,
on a field argent probably, for the field of the shield
has no hatching. The portrait shows a long, thin,
dark face, quite Spanish in character and closely re-
sembling all the heads of that time, — curling hair,
waxed and curled moustaches, beard cut to a point,
eyes rather large, with heavy eyebrows, aquiline and
humped nose : you know the kind of face. The poet
wears over a steel gorget a great cravat of Venice lace
with long Vandykes, open-worked and heavily em-
broidered. His doublet is covered with points, and on
the whole he wears a rather stylish dress, half foppish,
half military. What seems strange is that, prefixed to
this same play there is found, among eulogious verses
in all languages, a madrigal by Corneille which, I
fancy, is not widely known : —

" Thy Cleontes by his death
Holds out an attractive fate
To trickery.

In view of the wondrous fame
Which thy pen bestows on him after death,
Gladly would one deceive to be thus punished ;

And though it cost him his life,

Men will always envious feel
Of the luck which followed his evil fate,
Since he would no longer live had he not thus died."

21 I

THE GROTESQUES

Scudery having published anonymously his reflections

on " The Cid," Corneille, who was far from being as

modest and patient as it has pleased some writers to

represent him, addressed a very sharp letter to him, and

launched against him a rondeau in the Marotic style

which is as good as the madrigal and which is its

palinode : —

" Let him do better, that youthful youth,
Whom the Cid so greatly troubles,
Than to heap insult upon insult,
A dull imposture to angrily rime,
And like a criminal himself conceal.
Every one knows his jealous temper,
Points him out as a serious fool,
And puts no faith in his fine style.
Let him do better.

«« All Paris, his challenge reading,
Sends him to the devil and his muse to —
For me, I pity the pains he suffers,
And as a friend beseech him and pray,
If an immortal work he wishes to damn, —
To do better.

" Omnibus iti'videas, li'vide, nemo tibi.''

Scudery wrote this criticism of his, addressed to the

illustrious Academy, in order to pay his court to the

Cardinal Duke, who regretfully witnessed the brilliant

success of the " Cid," which eclipsed that of his own

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

play, and could not bear that Corneille, who had at
first been ohe of the five authors working under his
own orders, should seem to emancipate himself; — at
least, so it was said. For my part, without affirming
that this had nothing to do with the matter, I think
Scudery may very well have written the criticism to
please himself, and that he sincerely believed the play a
wretched one. Nor is this surprising. For to what
extremes will not prejudice lead a man ? Every day
cleverer people than Scudery think the finest things in
the world pitiful, and demonstrate, with apparent logic,
that they are worthless as a matter of fact. The way
to do this, though not new, is none the less infallible,
and very simple. For instance, you say : " To com-
pose a good tragedy such and such things are required.
It must be moral in conception and there must flow
from it a grave, austere lesson for mankind ; it must
contain terror and pity — cfjo/Sos koI eXeo? — this being
the foundation of every tragedy ; this and that must
be in it, for we see in the Stagirite or elsewhere that it
cannot be otherwise. Any one can see plainly that
there is nothing of all that in the work which we are
reviewing ; that the rules have not been observed ; that
the manners and costumes are inaccurate, the senti-

213

THE GROTESQUES

ments exaggerated ; that probability is constantly vio-
lated, and that the public is evidently in the wrong
when it crowds in to see it, and when it takes such
pleasure in it."

Scudery's criticism of " The Cid " would seem
most just and natural to any one that knew French
and had not read " The Cid," if such a person existed.
He begins first, like every critic who knows his busi-
ness, by kindly informing you that the piece is utterably
damnable, that it is a moral enormity, a monstrosity,
that it is parricidal and incestuous, that it violates all
human decency and respect. He explains all this at
great length, and alleges reasons which are certainly no
worse than many others which have been considered
sound. Next, when he has fully established the fact
that the piece is immoral, infamous, and worthy of
being burned by the executioner, he demonstrates that
it is absurd, impossible, and carried out in spite of com-
mon-sense ; he brings out the poverty and puerility of
the means employed, the unlikelihood of the entrances
and exits, and all this with very close dialectics which
it is difficult not to yield to. Then he exhibits the
falseness and exaggeration of the characters. He
shows you that the Count of Gormas is nothing but a

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GEORGE DE SCUDERY

comedy bully and a mountain-swallowcr, Rodriguez a
popinjay, Ximena a dissolute woman and an adventu-
ress who does not know what good form is, Don
Arias a stiff lover, Isabella a useless personage, and the
king a downright fool. Having proved this, he has
now only to strike the last blow, a secret thrust, more
difficult to parry than all the others. Not only is the
work immoral, absurd, improbable, it is copied, from
one end to the other. You believe that much belauded
" Cid " to be Corneille's work ? Well, not at all, it is
the work of Guillen de Castro, and as Claveret ele-
gantly remarks, " Corneille had merely to choose in
that beautiful nosegay of Spanish jessamine in bloom,
which was brought into his very room. And even
then, how did he imitate, in what kind of verses has he
set these beautiful starry flowers which bloom in the
garden of Guillen de Castro ? In verses which often
lack the rest after the hemistich, and which are
crowded with faults of grammar and with barbarisms."
And to prove his assertion he quotes more than two
hundred passages translated, copied or imitated.

Two or three hundred passages copied !

I hope that is conclusive enough. Nowadays no
author could recover from such an attack ; and truly,

215

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THE GROTESQUES

without being of Scudery's opinion, one cannot help
conceding, great as is the respect which one has for
the bronze statue of old Corneille, that the chief merit
of " The Cid " is not in the invention of the subject
or of the details, but in the elevation of thought, in the
vigorous, solid, indestructible form of the style and
the verse.

The most amusing thing is the final slap, in which
Scudery gravely reproaches M. de Corneille, recently
ennobled, with being truly and ignorantly swollen with
pride ; with being more puffed up and more stilted than
the Castilians of his tragedy ; with believing himself
the first poet in the world because of some slight
praise he has received ; and with being disdainful of
more illustrious people than himself. He tells him that
he ought to consider it an honour to be a simple citizen
in the republic of letters, that he ought not to attempt
to become its tyrant.

The latter accusation appears not to lack justifica-
tion. Corneille, it seems, had taken for a motto this
line of "The Cid,"

" To myself alone I owe my renown."
This terribly shocked Scudery, who seems to have
believed himself very modest. For the matter of that,

2l6

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GEORGE DE SCUDERY

modesty is ^scarcely the failing of the writers of that
day ; they are more swollen with pride than the frog
that was envious of the ox. Spanish wind distends
their skin until they are near bursting. Spanish hyper-
bole has invaded everything, the novel, tragedy, comedy
(which was the drama of that day), songs, couplets,
music, dancing, and fashion. It is the same proud
poverty, the same beggar's vanity, the same wealth of
gaudy rags. It is the real time of mud-bespattered and
would-be heroic poets, of highly refined poetry dull as
ditchwater. All the epigraphs, all the mottoes are
Spanish ; everything is imitated or translated from the
Spanish ; festivals, cards, masquerades, tilts are in
the Spanish taste. People make love in Spanish fash-
ion ; gallantry is characterised by the amazing puerility
which marks amorous commerce beyond the Pyrenees.
It is a succession of escalades and duels. Lovers who
do not know how to swim jump into the water booted
and spurred in the hope of softening the heart of their
love, or cause themselves to be brought to her apart-
ments in a box at the risk of stifling in it. Every
madrigal is a fabulous exaggeration, and it is hard to
believe that such things could ever have been said.
Every sonnet is a casket which contains more pearls,

21)

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THE GROTESQUES

diamonds, sapphires, and topazes than ever were
brought together in a jeweller's shop or in a king's
treasury.

The sun figures continually, dragged in about the
very first eye that conies along, called one-eyed and
blind ; and it is robbed of the rank and title of grand-
duke of the candles, which Dubartas had so graciously
given to it in favour of some Phyllis In a house of ill-
fame or some ancient Philaminta. It was a great
time. Types abounded on all hands. Every figure
stands out clearly against the background of the age ;
every one of the characters casts on the wall, as it
passes, a sharp, clearly defined silhouette. There is
the scholar, the pedant, the Sidias, half cad, half
valet, with dirty hands and dirty face ; a black, patched
cassock full of holes, spattered with mud, gaping at
every seam, spotted with wine dregs, glazed and shin-
ing with grease ; woollen stockings climbing spirally
around the place where the calves ought to be, unfas-
tened breeches, and a vermin-infested wig ; a sort of
animal stuck full of Greek and Latin like a porcupine,
constantly chewing and mumbling some threadbare
quotation, his pockets always full of books and papers;
a drunkard, smelly, miserly, obstinate ; a low libertine

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

who addresses hendecasyllabic verses in the manner
of Catullus to the Mollies and Kates of his tavern ;
for the rest, very learned, versed in all the languages
of the world, capable of saying " Bring me drink " in
fifty-two different tongues. Then the poet — there is
a nice figure ! Look at him walking with proud mien,
heroically ploughing through the mud with his soleless
boots. He is starving, and yet he passes in front of
the cook-shops with the most indifi^erent air. Accost
him, and this is what he will tell you : " Oh, how I
gorged myself this morning! We were five or six
veteran eaters, and we stuffed ourselves as full as we
could hold. Among other things there was a wild
boar's ear and a saddle of young ass, washed down
with a light Arbois wine which was not half bad and
which makes me lick my lips at the mere thought of
it." Then if you follow the poet who has had such a
good breakfast, you will see him, after he has turned
into a solitary lane, munch, under cover of his mantle,
a bit of hard bread and a piece of stale cheese which he
has stolen from a mouse-trap. His breeches are made
of a thesis printed on satin, and his rapier was formerly
a spit. His poverty does not prevent his believing
himself a really spoiled child of the Muses, the beloved

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THE GROTESQUES

son of Apollo, the favourite of kings and of beauties,
nor his gravely promising to immortalise all those who
will be good enough to let him dine with their kitchen
scullion and sleep in a dog-kennel or in the stable.
Nor is the braggart less entertaining, with his chest
well thrown out as in Callot's grotesques, one foot
planted forward, one hand on his hip, head thrown
back, his absurdly long rapier adorned with a no less
absurdly large shell, his extravagant and huge plume,
his titanic moustache which pierces the heavens with
its two sharp points ; and when, following Scudery's
example, he mingles literary pretensions with every
one of his boasts, you laugh until you nearly split your
sides. Just listen to him ! With what a superior
and grandiose air he cavalierly treats poetry : " I am
but a soldier, I understand better how to arrange bat-
talions than periods, and I have used more arquebus
matches than candle-wicks ; I can handle the sword
better than the pen, and it is rather on the battle-field
than on this meadow of white paper that my valour
should be judged of. This little work, which the reader
cannot fail to consider admirable, — for the most hon-
ourable people in the world have considered it to be so,
— I wrote by way of satisfying my fancy and passing

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

the time, and not to derive any profit from it, so that I
give to the 'players what I might have sold to them, — "
and no end of other vain boasts. And then the noble
swashbuckler, using false dice, coining counterfeit
money ; and the Italian adventuresses with their
velvet masks, perfumed, rouged, of such elegant, bold
figure, having always amid their pots of pomade, their
scent bottles, some little flagons of delicate poison and
a povVder with which to prepare the boccone ; and the
good, pot-bellied citizens, cautious and testy, ever
ready to throw up barricades. How harmonious, yet
different, are all these types, and what a picture full of
variety and ensemble they compose !

Scudery, in spite of his scant talents and his brag,
was none the less well thought of by the great cardinal,
and Sarrazin, in a " Discourse on Tragedy " prefixed to
" Love the Tyrant," does not hesitate to sav that the
play is one of the finest and most admirable, and that
it is safe from the attacks of the envious, both because
of its own intrinsic merit and because of a protection
which it would be more than sacrilege to violate, since
it is that of Armand du Plessis, the tutelary god of
letters. Through Madame de Rambouillet, with whom
his sister, Magdalen de Scudery, was very intimate,

THE GROTESQUES

George de Scudery obtained the post of governor of
Our Lady of the Guard in Provence. It is a sort of
barrack perched on the summit of a hill, which caused
Madame de Rambouillet, who knew thoroughly the
character of her friend, to say laughingly that he was
very well placed, and that this devil of a man would
never, on any account, have accepted a governorship
in a valley ; consequently he would be admirably situ-
ated there, perched upon a rock which overlooked the
whole country and with his head in the clouds. This
post was probably given him about 1641 or 1642.
Chapelle and Bachaumont, speaking of the castle of
Our Lady of the Guard in most comical fashion, say
it was in every respect a nest fit for such a bird : —

" Every one knows that Marseilles
Is rich, illustrious, nonpareil
For its situation and its port.
But if we are to tell you of a fort
Which no doubt a marvel is.
It is Our Lady of the Guard ;
A commodious and fine command
Which needs no further guard
Than a Swiss with his halberd armed,
Painted upon the castle gate.
. . . Gentlemen, there
It is long since any one entered.
The governor of that rock,

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

Posting ofF to return to court,
i Did some fifteen years ago

In his pocket carry off the key."

It would seem, nevertheless, that the governorship
did not bring in much revenue, if we may judge by the
lines which Scudery, being ill, sent to the Cardinal
Duke whom he had recently accompanied into Pied-
mont.

"But notwithstanding the illustrious favour
Which makes my lot illustrious and great,
But for you this my important place
Shall soon become of my tomb the site.

*' Yes, upon this distant rock.
If your hand does not succour me,
I shall resemble Prometheus,
Whom a vulture, 't is said, did devour.

" Hunger, that terrible vulture
Which is so much to be feared,
With its beak so pitiless
Shall come and persecute me there.

" Great Duke, from me this danger now remove!
Care for a soldier who served you well ;
And by a miracle in our day renewed
Upon this desert make the manna fall."

Scudery had spent a great deal of money in installing
himself there, and transporting to the spot numberless
cases containing the portraits of all the poets, from

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IHE GROTESQUES

Jean Marot, father of Clement, down to CoUetet ; for
Scudery, who was a pretty thoughtless person, wasted
the small means he possessed in trifles of this sort, and
administered his property very ill in spite of his sister's
efforts to inspire him with the spirit of thrift and
economy. Undoubtedly he was not rich enough to
form a gallery of paintings, if we are to believe Legros,
who relates that having come a long distance to visit a
certain Mile, de Palaiseau, formerly courted by Paul
Scarron, he dined off a piece of bread in one of the
walks of the Luxembourg, unable apparently to pay
for a meal elsewhere. The lines we have just quoted
support this statement ; yet if Scudery was short of
money, it was probably due to his carelessness rather
than to actual poverty, for his books — though dis-
credited since his day and poor though they certainly
were — sold uncommonly well, and he wrote many.
Boileau himself acknowledged this, with that tone of
sulkiness and bitterness usual to him : —

Fortunate Scudery, whose fertile pen
Can each month easily a volume write.
Your writings, it is true, lacking art and dull,
Seem to be composed in spite of common-sense ;
But yet they find, in spite of what men say,
A tradesman to sell and fools to read them.

224

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

Balzac, although he praised the tragedy of "Armi-
iiius," was not, it seems to me, a very great admirer of
our poet, or of the learned Saumaize with whom he
couples him : " Oh, fortunate writers ! You, M. de
Saumaize, in Latin, and you, M. de Scudery, in French,
can write more note-books than I can write almanacs.
Fortunate are the writers who make use of memory
and their fingers only in their work."

If Balzac means that de Saumaize and de Scudery
were wrong to produce a large quantity of very poor
stuff, his reproach is very well founded ; but his phrase
is turned in such fashion that it might be believed it is
facility of production which he ridicules. One of the
first gifts of genius is abundance, fruitfulness ; all great
geniuses have produced enormously, and it has never
been meritorious to take a very long time to do a very
little thing, whatever may say both Malherbe and Bal-
zac and all the slow writers whose brain is choked with
the soot of the midnight oil, and who suffer from the
difficulty of expressing their thoughts.

Scudery had also his admirers, Claveret, Chaude-
ville, Mairet, Chapelain, Conrart, and other wits of the
day, for he is not absolutely devoid of merit, as might
be thought at first glance. He possessed invention,

15 225

THE GROTESQUES

facility (which he always indulges in to excess, it is
true), and here and there one comes upon bright
and witty traits. As a descriptive poet he is often
worthy of praise. The underlying idea in one of his
volumes of verse, entitled " The Cabinet," is really
very ingenious. He supposes a gallery formed of all
the objects of art, pictures or statues which he has
seen in Italy or elsewhere during his travels, or else
which he owns himself, and he writes about each picture
a few verses in which the story of the subject is inter-
woven with the description. He dwells at great length
upon the portrait of Duke Armand de Richelieu by
Philippe de Champagne (this portrait is now in the
gallery of the Palais-Royal),^ and on that of Master
Adam, the Nevers joiner, and author of "The Pegs."
This latter portrait is by Chauvau. He also speaks at
great length of Callot's work. He wrote still another
volume of miscellaneous poems, among which are
some rather well turned, besides an enormous number
of sonnets, several of which have for their subject the
Fountain of Vaucluse and the loves of Laura and
Petrarch, and I know not how many poems and
harangues ; " The Faithful Caloander," a chivalrous

1 Since removed to the Louvre.

226

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

romance translated from the Italian, which I read
some six or seven years ago in the house of a village
priest, and of which I remember the title only ; and the
novel of " Polixandre," a continuation of " Astra^a."
This shows that he was a prolific author. Pelisson
calculates that he wrote from eleven to twelve thou-
sand verses, — a calculation evidently much below the
truth, since his works contain sixteen plays, all of
them in verse, with the exception of " A Comedy of
the Comedians," and each one at least fifteen hundred
lines long. " Alaric " alone contains eleven thousand
lines ; so Boileau could truly say that he brought forth
without difficulty a volume a month.

" The Illustrious Bassa " and " Cyrus the Great "
appeared under the name of George de Scudery, " Gov-
ernor of Our Lady of the Guard, and a Captain on the
strength of His Majesty's Galleys," as he never failed
to state. In these two books the prefaces and dedi-
cations alone are by him, and the only work he did
was to read the proofs. Eventually, however, he
had got to believe that it was he who had written
his sister's novels, and he would rage most fearfully
when the contrary was maintained ; hence some amus-
ing quarrels.

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THE GROTESQUES

Having been obliged to withdraw to Granville in
Normandy, in consequence of some slight intrigue in
behalf of the Prince of Conde, he met, at the house of
Madame de I'Epinay-Miron, Miss Mary Frances de
Moncel de Martin-Wast, who fell deeply in love with
him and whom he married. He had by her a very
handsome and very witty boy, who later entered the
church. Madame de Scudery, left a widow at thirty-
six, did not marry again, but lived in Paris, where she
died at the age of eighty-one in 17 12. Scudery him-
self died also in Paris on May 14, 1667. He had
been elected a member of the Academy in succession
to the purist Vaugelas, the translator of Quintus
Curtius.

Apart from his many absurdities, he had some good
points : in friendship he was faithful and perfectly trust-
worthy ; he wrote the apology of Hardy, his master in
the dramatic art ; he edited verv kindly the works of
several of his friends, among others Elzear de Sarcilly,
Sire of Chaudeville, who died at the age of twenty-
two ; he was the only one who did not forsake Theo-
phile de Viau in his misfortunes ; he maintained that
de Viau was the greatest poet in the world and the
rarest wit that ever lived, and he ended by saying that

228

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

whoever doubted that had better learn that he was
called de Scudery. He also built de Viau a tomb in
verse, which is to be seen at the beginning of his works
and in which he praises him in the most intrepid
fashion at a time when Theophile's dearest friends
pretended not to be aware that he had ever lived.
Chevreau relates in his "Ana " a trait which does him
the greatest honour. Here is the passage : —

" Queen Christina told me once that she was re-
serving, in return for his forthcoming dedication to her
of his poem ' Alaric,' a gold chain worth a thousand
pistoles ; but when the Count of Lagardie, who is
very highly spoken of in that poem, fell into disgrace
with the queen, she desired that the Count's name
should be struck out of the work. When I informed
him of this, he replied that the chain might be as big
and as heavy as that of the Incas, but he would not
destroy the altar on which he had offered up sacrifice.
This heroic pride displeased the queen, who changed
her mind ; and the Count of Lagardie, obliged to
acknowledge Scudery's generosity, did not even thank
him for it."

Scudery was unlucky in everything. Madame d'Ai-
guillon had obtained for him a priorv worth 4000 livres

229

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THE GROTESQUES

a year; at the end of six months the prior, who had
been believed dead, but had only been taken prisonerby
the enemy, reappeared, and Scudery had to give up the
property. At the very moment when he was finishing
"Alaric," the Queen of Sweden, in whose honour he
had undertaken to write it, abdicated piteously.

Since we have done with the rather wearisome
biographical details which have just been read, let us
speak at somewhat greater length of " Alaric, or Rome
Conquered," a heroic poem dedicated to Her Most
Serene Highness the Queen of Sweden by M. de
Scudery, Governor of Our Lady of the Guard. The
work is adorned with copper-plate engravings, and
opens with a frontispiece on which is seen Alaric,
sceptre in hand, with a plumed helmet, in the centre of
an architectural design surmounted by a shield bearing
the arms of Sweden supported by two crowned lions.
Below are prisoners, their hands tied behind their backs,
recalling statues of the great king. Next comes a
very interesting dedicatory epistle. In it the author
professes the most extreme admiration for Queen
Christina. Among other things he says: "I protest,
Madam, that I venerate Your Majesty no less than if
I had been born on the shores of the Baltic Sea, and I

230

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GEORGE DE SCUDERY

question whether Your Majesty would meet among the
Goths with as much admiration and respect as I bear
towards her in my heart. Indeed, those who have
tried to make us accept pyramids, tombs, and colossi
as wonders of the world, have tacitly told us that
they had no Christinas in their time, for they would
not have wasted their time describing them as prodi-
gies of art, had they possessed so great a miracle of
nature to tell us about." That is most gallantly
turned and most admirably reasoned out. A little
farther on he adds : " I must confess that the North
has now its Minerva in Stockholm, as formerly it had
its Diana in Tauris ; that wit and virtue belong to no
particular climate, and that they are found as well
in Stockholm and Upsala as in Rome and Athens.
Since the death of the great Cardinal Richelieu, my
master, I have given very little praise to any one be-
cause I have seen very little to praise ; but one cannot
be silent about a royal hand which often deigns to lay
down the sceptre in order to take up our books, and
which brings back that happy time when, we are told,
philosophers reigned and kings were philosophers. . . .
I know that it does not belong to a grinder of paints
to dare undertake to paint you, but if my power has

231

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THE GROTESQUES

equalled my zeal, a fair Amazonian Queen shall per-
haps have her Apelles as Alexander had his, and the
glory of Thomyris and Amalazontha, your forerun-
ners, will be wholly eclipsed by the incomparable bril-
liancy of Your Majesty's fame. ... It is not enough
for me that one should be called Porphyrogenetes^ and
unless the royal sceptre of kings is matched by royal
virtues, I esteem it as little as I do a shepherd's crook."

It would appear that this rather curious word, po?--
phyrogenetes^ was a particular favourite with Scudery, for
when he composed the compliment he had to speak
at his reception, he sent to Conrart, secretary of the
Academy, these three lines to be added in a place which
he indicated : " The Academy may, more justly than
the emperors of the East, call itself porphyrogenetes,
since it was born in the purple of cardinals, of kings,
and of chancellors." A sublime and splendid idea
indeed, which was well worthy an insert.

Let us return to the dedicatory epistle. " To be-
hold so extraordinary a thing I would go not only as
far as Thule, where Virgil sets the ultimate bounds of
the world, but I would go, if necessary, beyond the
new world discovered since his time. One must know
in order to love, it is said, and yet I love without

232

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GEORGE DE SCUDERY

knowing, — if the inequality of conditions permits the
use of this word and if respect suffers it ; but why
should it not suffer us to love kings, who are but the
image of God, since God himself not only suffers us
to love Him, not only commands it, but puts that
command first and foremost of all ? So, when I
learned that Your Majesty had fallen into the sea, I
felt my heart beat at the dreadful news, and in the
midst of the very peril in which Your Majesty was I
should have been less pale than I then became. If
this terrible adventure happened in the way it was
related to me, the chisel, the brush and the colours
would have fallen from my hands ; the triumphal arch
which I have erected in your honour would have re-
mained unfinished, and it would have been seen only
as the illustrious ruins of Rome, in which by the beauty
of a few broken columns one judges of the grandeur of
the whole building."

This may give the reader an idea of the modesty of
our friend and of the prefatory style. It would appear
further that the queens of the North had the unenvi-
able monopoly of the dedication of epic poems : Saint-
Amant's " Moses " is dedicated to the Queen of
Poland.

233

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THE GROTESQUES

After the dedicatory epistle comes a portrait of
Queen Christina with this quatrain below : —

"Laws Christina may impose
Upon the bravest conqueror ;
But does the earth a ruler hold
Who is worthy her slave to be ? "

Then comes the inevitable dissertion upon the excel-
lence and super-excellence of the epic poem above and
beyond all others ; on the manner of preparing and
dishing it up; on the question whether the inspiration
should be sought in fable or history ; on the question
whether or not mythology may be introduced into it;
and on many other fine problems, the poet showing, as
is the custom, that he is perfectly well acquainted with
all the proportions and alignments taught by art and
that he has consulted the masters thereof, that is :
Aristotle and Horace, and after them Macrobius,
Scaliger, Tasso, Castelvetro, Piccolomini, Vida, Vos-
sius, Pacius, Riccoboni, Robortel, Paul Benni, Mam-
brunus, and several others ; that he has read and re-read
most carefully Homer's " Iliad " and " Odyssey," Vir-
gil's "^Eneid," Lucan's " Pharsalia," Statius' " The-
baid," Boiardo's and Ariosto's " Orlando in Love," and
" Orlando Furious," the famous Torquato's incompar-

234

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

able "Jerusalem," and a great number of other epic
poems in divers tongues, such as the first books of
Ronsard's " Franciad," Father Lemoine's " Saint
Louis," the fine poem of " The Conquest of Granada,"
the best work that Italy has given us since Tasso's
time : and finally he proves that poetry was not in-
vented, as Castelvetro roundly maintains, per dilettare
e r'lcreare gli animi della ro%-za moltitudine e del commune
popolo^ but to delight gods and kings.

In the same dissertation he justifies himself on the
highest authority for having made his Alarlc in love
with the beautiful Amalazontha. Hugo has said:

" Chaste love doth ennoble souls.
And who true love knows, knows how to die."

Scudery is also of the opinion that there is no hero-
ism without love ; honest love is, properly speaking,
the fire of Hercules, which, burning him up, made him
a god ; and as Guevarre, one of the finest wits of
Spain, has very elegantly said, ••' Jrde y no quema ;
alumbra y no dana ; que>na y no consume ; resplandece y
no lastima ; pur'ifica y no ahrasa^ y aun caliente y no con-
goxa." These are the best reasons in the world, and
they cannot be denied. He also states that his " Al-
aric " is in ten books simply because he chose to have

235

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THE GROTESQUES

that number ; besides, the " Iliad " and the " Odyssey "
contain twenty-four, the " ^neid " twelve, the " Puni-
ca " of Silius Italicus seventeen, Ariosto's " Orlando "
forty-six, Boiardo's sixty-eight, " Jerusalem Delivered "
twenty, and Marini's " Adonis " twenty also, which
proves that there is no absolute rule and that every
one may do as he pleases. Heaven be praised, — and
George de Scudery ! for in truth I fail to see why he
did not write sixty-eight cantos, as did Boiardo.

Next we come to the Privilege, which it would be
a mistake to skip, for it is the most entertaining part
of the book. It is written by Conrart, and Scudery,
having read it, sent it back to him, complaining that
that was not the kind of Privilege he wrote for his
friends, and he had better retouch it ; which Conrart
did most complaisantly. Here are the passages : . . .
" Our dear and well beloved Sire de Scudery, Governor
of Our Lady of the Guard in Provence and a Captain
on the strength of Our galleys, has caused Us to be
informed that he has written a heroic poem entitled
' Alaric, or Rome Conquered,' which he intends to
adorn with figures engraved and drawn by the best
masters of the day, in order to render it worthier of
his intended dedication of it to the Most Serene Queen

236

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

of Sweden, Our very dear and well beloved cousin and
ally, who by her striking virtues and her royal liberality
attracts the admiration and the good will of men of
wit and learning in all parts of Europe ; but consider-
ing that this cannot be done save at great expense,
both for the printing as well as for the figures, he has
most humbly beseeched Us to grant him Our letters
necessary to prevent his work being pirated in this
realm, and exposed for sale if it is pirated elsewhere.
Wherefore, having in mind to treat favourably the
petitioner, who — after having signalised himself by
divers brave and valorous deeds during more than
a score of years spent in the army during the reign of
the late King Our most honoured Lord and Father,
both by land and sea, in France and in foreign coun-
tries, in which he has held honourable commands and
posts — has for some time past withdrawn from this
hard profession, and in a quieter walk of life has shown
by a great number of beautiful products of his mind
that he was born as much for letters as for arms, We
have granted to him, etc., etc. Done by the King in
His Council. Conrart." And it is sealed upon the
parchment with a great seal of yellow wax. That is a
splendid idea, worthy of modern comradeship, to have

237

wv^* v*^ «^ vr* .TV wTs* »7« a'^^ bT« «?0 «,'%> ^« »T* a^v •ff^ »^ vr« «.^ wv^ "^ •'7^ •«« «vw a^

THE GROTESQUES

praises of so official a character bestowed upon one, to
be declared a great man notwithstanding opposition,
injunction, and reservations, and all this sealed with
a seal of yellow wax upon parchment ! What can be
more respectable or more capable of imposing silence
upon malignant critics ? Modern prospectuses are
poor things in comparison, even when drawn up by
good Charles Nodier, the man of our time who praises
with the most shameless guilelessness and candour.
I place the praise in that Privilege far above the
Spanish, Italian, Latin, or Greek sonnets, the Hebrew
or Syriac madrigals, the learned procession of which
winds pompously along the first pages of everv new
work, and I am sorry, in truth, that Privileges are no
longer prefixed to books, for I should infallibly have
made use of that literary subterfuge in my next epic
poem.

The subject of the poem itself is very simple. An
angel suggests to Alaric the idea of overthrowing
Rome, the crimes of which have at last wearied the
patience of the Almighty. Alaric joyfullv accepts this
high commission ; but the fair Amalazontha, who is
the object of his love, cannot bear his going, and does
her utmost to keep him back. She fails to do so, and

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GEORGE DE SCUDERY

calls to the hejp of her charms a necromancer called
Rigilde, who fills with phantoms the forest in which
trees are being cut for the building of vessels, and
drives crazy a white bear which devours the workmen.
The killing of this bear is a mere pastime for Alaric,
who is very valiant and very skilful. At last the
fleet sets sail. The wizard Rigilde puts the sailors
to sleep and carries off Alaric, also asleep, into an
enchanted island where he shows him a sham Ama-
lazontha. The prelate of Upsala with difficulty breaks
the spell, and carries away the Gothic prince in spite
of his opposition. Assassins, which are but shadows,
appear to stab with many blows Amalazontha, herself
a shadow. It is a devilish illusion, due to Rigilde,
which soon vanishes. Herein lies the dualism, the
conflict in the poem : Rigilde draws Alaric one
way, the prelate of Upsala draws him the other; for
there is a myth in this aforementioned poem neither
more nor less than in a novel of Madame Sand's.
Alaric is man's soul ; the spell under which he falls,
like Ulysses in Calypso's isle, is symbolical of man's
weakness, even the strongest men, who, deprived of
the help of divine grace, fall into strange errors, but,
thanks to its powerful help, succeed in rising again

239 ^

THE GROTESQUES

and then getting rid of the errors themselves. The
magician who persecutes him represents the obstacles
which the demons always throw in the way of good
intentions. The beautiful Amalazontha is the power-
ful temptation of voluptuousness ; the great number
of enemies who oppose him are the world, which is
one of the three that the Christian soul has to fight,
according to the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers.
The invincible defence of the hero is free will ; the
endless tricks of the demons are the incessant warfare
they wage against the soul. The attacking of Rome
and the Prince's triumph are the victory of reason
over the world, the flesh, and the devil, and the
immortal crowns which God bestows upon virtue.

All the same the poem, looked at as a poem, is
uncommonly wearisome. In colour and details it is
occasionally interesting. It represents much more
faithfully the times in which it was composed than any
of the works which are superior to it. One can
plainly perceive Louis XIV and his court through all
these Gothic princes and Scandinavian lords. They
all wear full-bottomed wigs, gold or silver cloth
cuirasses, and kilts. Their costume is very like that
seen in the " Battles of Alexander," — warriors covered

240

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

with scales, red on one side and yellow on the other,
baldrics heavily braided, fluttering draperies of chang-
ing colours, aigrettes, and extravagantly tall plumes;
chins up, toes turned out, as if the warriors were about
to dance a minuet ; massive carved and gilded cars
drawn by big horses, satin white, with enormous
rumps, and tails properly trussed up ; great trees with
long leaves deeply indented and of the crudest green ;
boats with richly emblazoned prows worked by half-
naked men the colour of pumpkins, who academically
show off all the muscles of their brawny arms; land-
scapes in which yellow and ultramarine prevail ; seas
green as leeks ; palaces with huge terraces and stair-
cases ; walks lined with orange trees in apple-green
boxes ; round ponds, cascades falling in sheets, jets
of water, and all the waterworks of the Gardens of
Versailles. You find all that in Alaric; drawing,
costume, colour, architecture, landscape, — the times
are accurately reflected, even in the least details.
One would swear, for instance, that this was sketched
and coloured by Lebrun or Parrocel; it is the portrait
of a female warrior : —

" Her wavy hair, with great golden curls
Carelessly falling, makes her fairer yet.

16 241

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THE GROTESQUES

Her brow's adorned with a tall ermine cap

Whose wondrous whiteness her good looks becomes ;

A heron's plume of darkest black

Makes whiter yet the ermine white.

A loose dress she wears of skin of tiger made,

Which, though savage looking, most tasteful is ;

By a buckle caught up it lets the eye perceive

Her buskins lined with a vulture's skin.

Of grass is her quiver, of whalebone her bow ;

Her scarf of reeds down to the ground extends,

Her sword supporting, and its verdure fair

Mingles with the spotted white that covers her form

The whiteness of her arms, to the ermine opposed,

A new lustre wins that makes it fairer still,

And her brilliant complexion, spite of its rosy blush,

Would make a swan show black by its side.

Her features all are exquisite, her figure superb,

She walks with a gait worthy of a goddess.

And in her mien, superb as its appears.

Is fear-inspiring yet attractive pride."

There is a charming costume for you, well fitted for
a ballet. It is quite in the semi-antique, semi-romantic
mode of the day ; nothing could harmonise better
with the boxwood hedges and the curly-wigged Tritons
of the basins. Here now is the description of a
fountain : —

«' In the middle of the court a fountain rare
Throws high in air its ever-welling wave.
And these ascending jets splash down again

242

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GEORGE DE SCUDERY

Upon the marble white their waters lave.

Of many marine monsters the figures quaint

On this transparent frame has sculpture placed }

And this broad basin, opening like a vase,

Rests on a jasper pillar, red and green.

In the basin's midst is a Nereid

Trying to dry her still wet hair,

And who, seeming to press her long and wondrous locks.

Makes foam and water ever from them spring.

The tritons twelve which the machine upbear

Are seen to gaze upon this water nymph.

And through their shells hurl high in air

A thousand streams of crystal pure."

These Tritons are cousins german to those of Ver-
sailles ; they must all have been cast by the brothers
Augier or the Kellers ; the nymph is probably by
Coysevox or Girardon. The style is exactly the same,
and it is impossible to tell whether the poet writes after
seeing the work of the sculptor, or whether the sculptor
has carried out in marble or in bronze the imaginary
description of the poet.

Boileau's line is well known, —

" A surfeit of festoons, a wealth of astragals ; "

but, please Boileau, there is a great deal of dash and
imagination in the description of the enchanted palace.
Its architecture is of marvellous richness. There are

243

THE GROTESQUES

columns rising above columns, domes of prodigious
height, endless galleries, golden trellises, jets of water
springing heavenward, great marble staircases, pot-
bellied balusters correct in style and handsome, rustic
and non-rustic cabinets, vases, and statues, bowers cut
in a thousand fashions, groups of statues, — a fairy
Versailles, which neither Levau nor Hardouin Mansart
nor Le Notre would have disavowed. This facade
seems to be worthv of any architect. Neither Bramante
nor Bernini could be more fecund or richer.

" But the great building's royal front,
Effacing all the rest, unequalled is.
The eye is charmed, the mind amazed.
The hand itself trembles as it describes.
Throughout the Corinthian order reigns,
The fair acanthus leaf curls everywhere,
And mid these ornaments are ever seen
Triumphal helms and smoking vases high.
Festoons in every part and crovpns at every point.
Bases and capitals, columns, pilasters,
Masks and cupids, ciphers interlaced,
And skulls of rams that are strung on cords.
On moulding and cornice the glance e'er rests.
On figures of bronze in niches rich.
Friezes, balconies, outworks, and scrolls and shields,
And fruit-filled cornucopias with golden leaves and blooms.
All, in a word, that architecture can achieve.
Or fine art of drawing and sculpture rare,

244

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

All shines brilliantly on this palace front,
Which nevefihad its like and never shall."

The staircase is not unworthy of the facade : —

"... The stair
Shows its length, superb and singular ;

Carved in white, pure marble, a hundred nymphs are ranged —
Great baskets of flowers on their heads upborne, —
Heads adorned by art and nature both —
And seem to seek to the rich apartments to ascend ;
Their left maintains the splendid basket ; firm upholds
The right the rich folds of their antique dress ;
And art has transformed, by its noble effort,
The veins of the marble into those of their form.'*

Comes now the bathroom : —

*' Octagonal in shape it looks to the dawn.
Four steps of marble deeply sunk,
Are fitted to sit on by the silver wave
Which into the jasper bath abundant flows.
Swift pours the water from the crystal urn
Held under right arm by metal river god.
Which amid the reeds and iris wet
Seems to rest his brow with wrinkles seamed,
While with one hand he seeks to dry
The long, wet hair that surely troubles him,
And at the same time to dry the bristling beard
That drips under the hand that presses it.
In every angle a column stands, and there besides are seen
The linen and the perfumes in golden vases four
That carving rare in low relief adorns.

245

THE GROTESQUES

Four marble nymphs in four recesses placed
As if from bath emerging their garments lift,
And show their bodies white and passing feir."

I confess that this palace, though solemnly anathe-
matised by Boileau, pleases me greatly, and that I
would very well like to walk with some La Valliere or
Amalazontha under —

" The thick and covert shade
Cast by the green architecture of the grove, — "

and the more peacefully that, as simple Scudery art-
lessly remarks, —

" The precepts of art are carefully observed."

Talking of the precepts of art, I have forgotten, and it
is one of his greatest titles to classic glory, that Scudery
was the first to introduce the rule of twenty-four hours
into his " Liberal Love," the result unquestionably of
a fine imagination, and which ought to have earned
for him the indulgence of the Regent of Parnassus.
Unfortunately, Scudery did not always stick to classical
regularity. He has written a comedy full of fantastic
freedom, a sort of a play turned inside out, in which
the scenery is reversed and which shows vnu the back

246

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GEORGE DE SCUDERY

of the actor., the spectator being, as it were, placed at
the back of the stage. This curious production is en-
titled " The Comedy of the Comedians."

Among the numerous historical or imaginary person-
ages, pitiful or comical, who strut about the great stage
of the world and who are subject to be transformed into
dramatic heroes, without their leave being asked, by
the caprice of the first pedant that happens along, there
is one class of people whose profession seems to pro-
tect them against such a misfortune. It scarcely
occurs to one to think of an undertaker being buried,
or of a hangman being hanged ; and for the same rea-
son it seems strange that a player should put himself
on the stage, he who is in the habit of putting others
on it ; and yet there is something piquant in seeing an
actor, a man who expresses only thoughts which are
not his, who lives on the love and passion which are
portioned out to him, who does not breathe a sigh
which has not been marked down for him, who does
not make a gesture which is not artificial, — it is
piquant, I say, to see such a man express, for once, his
own ideas, his own every-day thoughts, and talk a little
of his household affairs, of his kitchen, of his loves, of
his wife and his legitimate children ; he who has made

247

THE GROTESQUES

so many declarations of love to beautiful princesses
under the shade of paper trees, and who has so pitifully
dirtied his only pair of silk breeches by dragging him-
self on his knees across carpets of painted canvas. It
is fun to see beaten by his own wife this thorough-
paced libertine, who has contracted so many secret
marriages and who almost every evening at the end of
the play is obliged to acknowledge — thanks to a gold
bracelet made of copper and adorned with sapphires of
blue glass — some charming little bastard girl who was
carried away quite young and taken off to Algiers by
Moorish corsairs. But the poor comedian possesses
himself so little, he is so fatally a prey to imitation,
that he cannot even be himself when he is himself; he
must play always and incessantly. He cannot wipe
off that powder and rouge which destroy his natural
complexion, which sink into his skin ; Scapin's tunic
clings as close to his body as did the robe of Dejanira
to the body of Hercules ; and if he does drink a bottle
of wine — not one of those bottles turned in wood,
from which he pours imaginary bumpers into a bottom-
less goblet, but a genuine, joyous bottle, full of good,
real wine — he cannot carelessly throw away the cork
as any one else would do ; he has to pick it up and put

' 24^8

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

it in his pocket, for he will use it to blacken his eye-
brows when next he plays the part of a tyrant or a
traitor. What a life is his ! His own face is not his
own, his smiles and his tears do not belong to him, he
is obliged to conceal his lilies under plaster, his roses
under rouge ; according to the requirements of the
part, he must exchange his beautiful black hair for a
wig of tow. His real name is the only name by which
he is never called. The fancy of an author may com-
pel him to use on his visage a decoction of that very
licorice intended to cure the cold which he took last
winter when playing the part of a Roman, bare-armed
and bare-legged, with the thermometer at ten below
zero. Unquestionably, next to being the lover of a
woman who has moustaches, the worst of all human
conditions is that of a player, or a dramatic artist, as it
is now called. And yet, O Public, you brute beast,
men resign themselves to that martyrdom for the
sake of being bombarded with rotten apples by you !
Such a life leaves a good deal for the imagination and
can furnish an excellent basis for a comedy, though
M. Casimir Delavigne did write a poor one on this
subject, which nevertheless in its day enjoyed some
reputation.

249

THE GROTESQUES

Another poet, Gougenot of Dijon, a fellow-country-
man of mustard, also wrote a " Comedy of Comedi-
ans." The Dijon man's play has the same title as
that by the Governor of Our Lady of the Guard, and
I cannot quite reconcile this fact with Scudery's claim
that his comedy is a poem of a new invention, in the
style called capriccioso by the Italians. Gougenot's play
is of 1603 and Scudery's is of 1605, which establishes
a strong presumption in favour of the former; never-
theless the latter's play is the brighter and the more
fantastically developed, and we merely mention the
other to recall it.

The Count of Vigny condescended to tell us that
his " Chatterton " cost him seventeen nights of work ;
Scudery begins by informing us that if his play suc-
ceeds as well in book form as on the stage, he will not
regret the fortnight which it took him to write it. A
fortnight is less pretentious than seventeen nights, but
not so bad considering the times.

Here comes Prologue. The famous Mondory plays
the part. He is indignant at the absurd things which
they are trying to make him believe. His comrades
must be crazy. They tell him that he is not on the
stage, that this is the city of Lyons ; that yonder is an

250

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

inn and here a tennis court, where comedians who are
not themselves and yet who are themselves, are repre-
senting a pastoral. How the devil can any one believe
such nonsense ? They pretend that he, for his part,
is a certain M. de Blandimare, although his real name is
Mondory ; and his companions have all taken assumed
names, Belleombre, Beausejour, Beausoleil, as if the
public did not know them and did not know that they
are the comedians of the Hotel de Bourgogne, and not
a provincial troupe. For his part, he will have nothing
to do with it and begs the public to excuse this fantasy
and to keep quiet. These gentlemen, being of a very
melancholy disposition, are exceedingly fond of silence.
The scene represents the entrance to the play-
house ; two posters, as huge as the posters of a
modern benefit performance, are affixed on either side
of the door. Belleombre, the janitor of the company,
wearing a Spanish sombrero, fiercely curled moustaches,
a tuft in the shape of an artichoke leaf, his shoes
covered with extravagant rosettes, a cloak capriciously
twisted around his body, his left hand resting upon the
hilt of a colossal sword which must have been worn by
Goliath the giant and which resembles the symbolical
sword which the painters place in the hand of Saint

251

THE GROTESQUES

Paul, one foot stuck out, and proudly posed, awaits
in a stoical and solemn attitude the kind public
which is in no hurry to come. If things do not mend,
he will be compelled, in spite of himself, to give the
lie to the proverb, " A playhouse porter is a thief; "
for however expert one may be in the use of pincers
and hook, there are no fingers crooked enough to
extract anything out of emptiness and to cut the purse
of nothingness. The company's treasury is as empty
as the drum ; there is not a single doubloon, not a red
cent, not even a bad penny. Yet, it is past five
o'clock; the play has not begun, and it should be
ended ; the drummer, accompanied by Harlequin, his
faithful Achates, has just finished his turn through the
town. Harlequin is quite bewildered. It is the first
time he has gone through the streets without being
noticed. He has not attracted any more attention than
if he were a citizen, or if all the citizens had been
Harlequins; even the little boys are like so many
Greek sages in jackets, and have thought no more of
his jokes than if they were Socrates. That tail of
street boys which from times immemorial has instinc-
tively glued Itself to the back of every drummer, re-
mains occupied In playing at hop-scotch and chuck-hole.

252

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

It is impossible to stir these worthy provincials, sunk
in a marmot's torpor. The drumming of the drum,
and the sangodemi of Harlequin have been as ineffective
as the lies of the poster. The company runs great
risk this evening of being deprived of its necessary
nourishment and of having to go to bed without having
swallowed anything else than the fog and the damp
wind.

At last appears an honest, kindly-faced man who
saunters by the wall with an air of idlesse that prom-
ises well. He looks like a heavy father or an uncle.
He is an uncle, looking for his rascal of a nephew, an
occupation worthy of such a relative. He looks up,
reads the poster, and asks the price of the seats.
" Eight pence," replies Belleombre, who is none else
than the nephew of the aforesaid uncle, and who, after
having tried all the kinds of life to which debauch can
reduce a young man, has enrolled himself in a company
of strolling players. " Ah ! " exclaims the nephew,
" it is that devil of an uncle of mine. I am lost,
lost I " The uncle scolds him, like the regular uncle
that he is. His nephew advises him to go in at once
and to reserve his seat ; if he finds no one in the
house, it is because all the spectators have gone into

253

THE GROTESQUES

the tennis court next door and are waiting until the
play begins, to come in together. The uncle is not
to be fooled ; and like every comedy uncle, although
apparently a scold and ill-tempered, he is at bottom
kind-hearted. He invites his nephew and the whole
company to come and sup with him at the Pine Cone
Hotel where he is lodging.

The supper is done, the finger-bowls have been
passed round. M. de Blandimare, the uncle, who is
quite a gallant, offers his hand to the ladies to pass into
the room, and affects maliciously to mistake their
names when speaking to them. His error is quite
excusable, for the names of comedians are so much
alike that it is very difficult not to mistake one for the
other : Bellerosse, Belleville, Beauchateau, Belleroche,
Beaulieu, Beaupre, Bellefleur, Bellespine, Beausejour,
Belleombre, Beausoleil. In a word, they alone possess
all the belles and beauties of nature. In spite of it all,
M. de Blandimare is at bottom a friend of plays and
players; but he is an exacting amateur, and is of
opinion that actors must be like poetry, melons, and
wine, — that is excellent ; otherwise they are detest-
able, and he draws an ideal portrait of the player which
seems rather difficult to realise : —

254

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

"To deserve the title of good player so many qualities are
required that they are rarely met with together. First, nature
must do its share by giving the man good looks, for that is
what first impresses the mind of the spectators. He must -lavc
a fine carriage ; free, unconstrained gestures ; a clear, distinct,
and strong voice. His speech must be free from mispronun-
ciations and from the corrupt accent which one acquires in
the provinces; he must speak in pure French. He must
have a ready mind and a clear judgment in order to under-
stand verses well, and a good memory to learn them quickly
and remember them later and always; he must not be
ignorant either of history or of philosophy, else he will make a
botch of it, however much he may try, and will often recite
things in a way to destroy the sense and as thoroughly
wrongly as a musician who lacks ear ; his gestures even would,
then be like those of an indifferent dancer who skips along,
always missing the cadence ; hence so many extravagant
postures, so many unseasonable salutes with the hat such as
are seen on the stage. Finally, all his repartees must alsc be
matched or accompanied by a modest boldness which, border-
ing neither upon effrontery nor timidity, shall be maintained
within just proportions ; and, to conclude, tears, laughter,
love, hatred, indifference, contempt, jealousy, anger, ambi-
tion,— in a word, all the passions, — must be depicted on
his face whenever he chooses to exhibit them. Now you
may judge whether a man of this sort is any less rare than a
phoenix.*'

255

THE GROTESQUES

The poor strolling players humbly confess to their
host that they are very far from possessing all these
qualities, but though they do not own them all, neither
do they lack them all ; and if M. de Blandimare will
be good enough to listen to them, he will see that
they are not so very despicable.

" What plays have you ? " asks M. de Blandimare.

" All those of the late Hardy, Theophile's ' Pyra-
mus, ' ' Sylvia,' ' Chryseides,' ' Sylvanira,' ' The Follies
of Cardenio,' 'The Faithless Confidante,' ' Phyllis of
Scyre,' the 'Pastorals' of M. Racan. ' Lygdamon,'
» The Deceiver Punished,' ' Melita,' ' Clitander,'
'The Widow,' ' The Ring of Forgetfulness,' and all
that the finest wits of the time have written. For the
time being, a Pastoral Eclogue by the author of 'The
Deceiver Punished ' will, it is thought, suffice."

M. de Blandimare willingly agrees to this proposal,
for he is a great friend of that gentleman who, in his
opinion, of all those who wear the sword is the one
who best handles the pen. The eclogue is recited.
M. de Blandimare, delighted, proposes to give up his
own room and his bed to the ladies of the companv,
and, far from blaming his nephew, enrols himself in
the troupe and takes a part in the tragi-comedy which

256

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GEORGE DE SCUDERY

is to be performed on the morrow and which bears the
title of " Love Hidden by Love." The company parts,
and the stage represents the stage j it is the third act
and at the same time the first. Like " Hamlet, Prince
of Denmark," this play contains another play. The
first one was in prose, an extraordinary thing in that
happy time when dramatic poems were all rimed ; the
second one is in verse. " Gentlemen," says Prologue.
— "Ladies," says Argument. — "That ancient Greek
philosopher was right " — " Taraminte, the shepherd of
Forez " — " who said that men " — " had only one son
called Florintor." " Who Is this hempfield scarecrow
that comes to interrupt me?" — " And who is that per-
sonage dressed up in second-hand clothes who accosts
me with such ill grace ? " — "I am Prologue." — " And
I am Argument." Argument and Prologue dispute
with each other, and each proves the other useless.
Prologue orders Argument to go and hide himself in the
crowd, and tells him that he is only fit to dirty himself
with printer's ink and to dress up in paper and parch-
ment. Argument calls him old utility, echo, parrot,
and the pair withdraw without any conclusion being
reached, just as they had come: "Good-bye, Mr. Ar-
gument." " Good-bye, Mr. Prologue."

17 257

THE GROTESQUES

The scene changes again, and represents a pastoral
country. We. are in Forez, right in the country of
Honore d'Urfe, on the sweet banks of the Lignon,
that well-bred river whose waters are whey. It is a
lovely country, and I greatly miss it, for my part.
The foliage of the trees is of apple-green silk chenille,
the grass is of enamel and the flowers of china porce-
lain. From amid the well-combed bushes great roses
as big as cabbages smile pleasantly upon you with their
purple lips, and let you read their innocent thoughts
within the depths of their scarlet hearts. Clouds of
well-combed cotton wool float softly upon the blue taf-
feta of the sky. Little brooks, formed by lovers' tears,
meander with elegiac murmurings upon a bed of gold
dust ; young zephyrs gently wave their wings like fans
and spread through the air a delightful coolness. The
echoes are the most ingenious and the very best bred in
the world ; they are always ready to reply with some
delightful assonance to the stanzas addressed to them,
and they never fail to reply, to the lover who asks
them whether his mistress feels for him in the torments
which he has to endure, sure — for in this fairyland the
natural rime to mistress is tigress. Charming little
lambs, curled and powdered, with a pink ribbon and a

^^8

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

silver bell around their necks, leap in cadence and dance
a minuet to the sound of the pipes and tabors. The
shepherds wear high-heeled shoes adorned with prodi-
gious rosettes, heavily braided kilts, and ribbons all over
their persons. The shepherdesses spread upon the
sward satin skirts adorned with knots and wreaths. As
for the wolves, they discreetly keep out of the way, and
their black noses scarcely ever show from the wings
save to afford Celadon an opportunity of saving the
divine Astrasa. This happy country is situated between
the realm of Tendre and the country of Cocaigne, and
long since the road that leads to it has been forgotten.
It is a pity. I should very much like to have gone to
see it ; Rousseau long wanted to ; but it seems that the
real Forez is a most prosaic district with iron-works,
where a locksmith easily finds occupation. O imagi-
nation of the poets ! How cruel are the deceptions
you prepare for us !

For the rest, these shepherds resemble in no wise
the shepherds of Theocritus and Virgil. It is no longer
Phyllis or Amaryllis or Thestilis who are crushing
garlic for the harvesters, not even the Chloe of Lon-
gus's romance, or Theano, or any of these ladies. It
is an entirely different cycle, that one of which d'Urfe's

259

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THE GROTESQUES

book is the central point ; it is a Spanish, a Romantic
period. It is an entirely different shepherd population;
the names have other roots and are not composed in
the same way. Daphnis is called Florintor; Menalcus,
Taraminte ; Tityrus, Alphause, or Lisimant ; the Gal-
atea who takes refuge behind the willows is changed into
Isomene or Luciane. The antique simplicity of the
antique eclogue would seem rather tasteless to these
refined people. Their conversations are regular sym-
posia, full of points in which the most refined preciosity
sends out right and left its tendrils and its strange
flowers whose perfume intoxicates, — preciosity, that
fair French flower, which bloomed so beautifully in the
pattern flower-beds of the gardens of the old school,
and which Moliere so wickedly trampled under foot in
I forget what immortal bad little play.

The plot of the pastoral introduced into "The Com-
edy of Comedians " is rather pretty. Pirandre adores
Melisee, who, in order to test the depth of his passion,
feigns to receive favourably another shepherd named
Florintor. On his part Pirandre, in order to awaken
the jealousy of Melisee and pique her self-love, pays
attentions to fair Isomene, who receives him very
pleasantly ; apparently, at least, for she does it only to

260

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

conceal her^ame, and her true lover is that same Flo-
rintor, the fictitious lover of Melisee, whom Isomene's
parents do not approve of. The scenes and situations
which result from such an imbroglio can easily be im-
agined. The comedy parents make up their minds that
their children shall be happy and married without fur-
ther delay ; Pirandre shall wed Isomene, Florintor
Melisee. The poor lovers, who are caught in the very
trap which they have set and in the very lime of their
own cleverness, do not welcome this news with much
enthusiasm. As in those days the idea of duty was all-
powerful and the father excessively feared, the lovers
dare not inform their respective parents of the deceit
which they have practised, and they agree to meet on
the banks of the Lignon for a last interview, after which
they will celebrate their wedding in its cold watery bed
by drowning themselves. Happily the parents, who
suspect something, have followed them, and concealing
themselves behind one of those leafy and propitious
trees which are never lacking in a comedy, they have
heard the whole of the conversation. Touched by so
much love, they issue from their retreat and unite the
four lovers in their natural order, that is, Pirandre with
Melisee, Florintor with Isomene. They had many

261

THE GROTESQUES

children. The author does not say so, but I take it
for granted.

M. de Blandimare speaks to the public a sort of com-
pliment in prose, which introduces the final couplet, and
the piece ends. I fancy the description of an actress's
dressing-room in 1635 will be read with pleasure. It
is complete in itself, and can readily be detached from
the rest. It is Beausoleil who speaks : —

" As our rooms are so far like temples that they are open to
everybody, for one well-bred person who visits us we have to
endure the impertinences of very many ill-bred men. One
will come and swing his legs for the whole afternoon upon a
box without saying a word, simply to show us that he has got
moustaches and knows how to curl them. Another, some-
what less of a dreamer, but no cleverer, will talk of nothing
but trifles of as litde value as his own wit ; taking upon him-
self to be helpful, he will put a patch upon our bosom with
the intention of feeling it, or will insist on holding the mirror,
tying a knot of ribbon, or powdering our hair, and availing
himself of the opportunity to speak of these things, he speaks
of them with the stalest and flattest of witdcisms. A third,
pitching his voice too high and too loud for his prattle, heed-
lessly censures the poems which we have performed, — one
wearies by its length; the action of another is weak; a third
is dull and sterile of thoughts ; another, on the contrary, suifer-
ing from a plethora of ideas, is involved and incomprehensible ;

GEORGE DE SCUDERY

one is defective in that it does not conform to the rules of the
ancients and thus exhibits the author's ignorance ; another
writer has mastered them too carefully, is cold and fails to im-
part action to his play ; another speaks disconnectedly and
incorrectly, and lacks the polish of the court ; others again lack
the ornaments of poetry; others abound over-much in fables
and smack more of the pedant than of the well-bred man,
more of oil than of ambergris, — in a word, not one escapes
the tongue of that critic, who thinks censuring so many wits
without hearing them in their own defence proves that he is
as poor a judge of verse as are poor judges of the virtue of
women those men who suspect us of having none."

263

Paul Scarron

THE GROTESQUES

PAUL SCARRON

IN classical times, when writers endeavour to
recover through study the severe and simple
lines of the ancient poets, they often fall into
regrettable excess, into dulness and dryness ;
they seem to be haunted by a wrong idea of what
is a lofty style; the familiar frightens them, they
write in a dialect as learned as that of the Brahmins.
Good taste is a fine thing, but it must not be carried
too far. Through excess of good taste very many
subjects, details, images, and expressions which have
all the flavour of life are lost. The beautiful rich
tongue of the sixteenth century, picked over and
winnowed by over-particular hands, seems to us to
have lost, along with the few weeds which were
removed from it, many ears full of golden grain. We
are of those who regret that Malherbe came. A great
and admirable poet, Mathurin Regnier, expressed some-
what the same thought in verse of surprising energy

THE GROTESQUES

and vigour. The influence of Louis XIV was not
always beneficial to the literature and art of his
time. The great king's periwig has too much part in
them, majestic conventions and etiquette have rather
driven out nature. The trees at Versailles are curled
like the courtiers ; the poems are laid out in straight
lines, like the walks. Everywhere cold regularity has
taken the place of the delightful variety of real life,
and the will of a single man has been substituted for
individual fancy. Louis XIV, who kindly allowed
himself to be personified as the sun, loved splen-
dour rather than art. He was not endowed with the
quick intelligence of Julius II or Leo X. He kne'V
that every great reign ought to possess a certain num-^
ber of poets, prose writers, artists, architects, sculptors^
and painters, and he procured the artists whom hir
glory required ; for great kings make great artists,
they have only to will ; a pleasant look, a kind word,
a handful of gold, are sufficient. That improvised
art, however, revolved around Louis XIV alone, and
aimed solely to please him. To please the king, to
divert the king, to praise the king, to paint the king's
portrait, to carve the king's statues, — such was the
sole, the one and only thought; and as the king was

* 268

PAUL SCARRQN

rather fond of somewhat stiff pomp, of somewhat
affected solemnity, his taste set the fashion. Poetry
always wore a court dress, and had a page to bear its
train lest it should drop any of its gold brocade petti-
coats as it ascended the marble stairs of Versailles. An
expression disallowed at court was shunned everywhere
else. The d'Hoziers of grammar examined the title-
deeds of each word, and such of them as happened
to be of middle-class origin were pitilessly rejected.
Painting, devoting itself to the production of show-
pieces and the decoration of ceilings with mythological
scenes, considered that the imitation of nature was
beneath its dignity, for Nature had not been pre-
sented at court, Louis XIV having in everything,
but especially in art, a horror of truth. The Flemish
artists were most distasteful to him ; he preferred
Charles Lebrun, his chief painter, — a piece of royal
taste which we must not dispute or discuss.

Out of all this was evolved a magnificent, grandiose,
solemn art, but, — let us venture to say it, — save two
or three glorious exceptions, a rather wearisome art,
which produces an impression not unlike that made by
the gardens of Le Notre or of La Quintinie; every-
where marbles and bronzes, Neptunes and Tritons

269

THE GROTESQUES

and nymphs, rockeries and basins, grottoes and col-
onnades, yew-trees in the shape of sugar loaves, box-
wood in the shape of boats ; whatever can be imagined
most noble, most rich, most costly, and most im-
possible : but after you have walked for an hour or
two, you feel a weariness settling down upon you
like a fine rain, with the spray of the fountains ; a
dull melancholy invades your mind at the sight of
those trees not one branch of which is higher than
another, and whose irreproachable alignment would
delight a Prussian landwehr drill-master. You begin,
m spite of yourself, to wish you could come across
some little bit of rustic landscape, — a clump of
nut-trees by a peasant's hut, with its mossy roof
covered with wall-flower in bloom ; a peasant woman,
a child in her arms, standing on the threshold of the
door around which twines a wreath of vine ; a wash-
ing-place at the brook-side down in the valley, under
the bluish shade of the willows, enlivened by the
chatter of the washerwomen and the sound of their
bats ; a rich meadow where graze, breast-high in
waving grass, great red cows such as Paul Potter
paints so well, and which, in courtly idylls, graze,
under the euphonic name of heifers.^ on a sward of

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PAUL SCARRON

green satin. Under the preceding reign the Gallic
element was much more visible in literature through
the mixture of Spanish and Italian. The Hellenic
branch which Ronsard had grafted upon the old trunk
of our idiom, nourished by the sap from the ground,
had become one with the tree; there is not such
a great difference as might be thought between
the political discourses of the gentleman of Vendome
and certain tirades of Pierre Corneille. The lan-
guage was charming ; full of colour, simple, strong,
heroic, fantastic, elegant, grotesque, lending itself to
every fancy of the writer, and as well fitted to express
the haughty Castilian manners of the Cid as to chalk
upon the walls of pothouses spicy refrains of gluttony.
The French mind, clever, malicious, sensible, accu-
rate, but rather lacking in reverie, ha^ always had
a secret inclination to the grotesque ; there is no
nation which more quickly seizes upon the ridicu-
lous side of things, and in the most serious it still
finds an opportunity for a joke.

In the reign of Louis XIV there still prevailed in
literature an adventurous taste, an audacity, a comic
spirit, a cavalier style which were quite in harmony
with the manners of the refined people of the time.

THE GROTESQUES

Neither words nor things were very closely ex-
amined, provided the touch was firm, the colour bold,
and the drawing correct. The influence of Marini,
Lalli, Caporali, Quevedo had given rise to innumerable
burlesque compositions in which the quaintness of
the subject-matter vies with the fancifulness of the
expression. A big book could be made merely out
of the titles of all the works which the reaction,
at the head of which were Boileau and Racine, con-
demned to deep obUvion, from which they are drawn
from time to time by the curiosity of a bibliophile or
of a critic who hunts among what are called the minor
poets for those characteristic features which talents of
the first rank are apt to neglect or disdain. Paul Scar-
ron is in some sort the Homer of this comic school ;
he sums up and incarnates it ; he possessed even the
outward physical appearance of his particular style.
Byron, the head of the Satanic school, was club-
footed, like the devil ; Scarron, the chief of the bur-
lesque school, was hunchbacked and deformed, like
Punch. The eccentricity in his verse is reflected
in the eccentricities of his backbone and his limbs.
Ideas, like goldsmith's hammers, hammer out the ex-
ternal shape and force it into hollows and protuber-

272

PAUL SCARRON

ances as they choose. The name of Scarron is about
the only one which has survived out of that whole
company, and from time to time some of his plays are
still read. Not that among the works of his fellows,
hopelessly overwhelmed in the black waters of obliv-
ion, one does not come upon passages as free in
movement, as brightly comic and as skilfully writ-
ten ; but human memory, already overburdened with
so many names, usually chooses one for each literary
form and passes it on from age to age without further
examination. An amusing occupation for any one
having leisure enough and not afraid of traversing
and sometimes going counter to the torrent of gen-
erally accepted belief, would be to revise the judg-
ments passed upon a multitude of authors and artists
by their contemporaries or by posterity, the latter
not being always as equitable as is said. Most cer-
tainly mo're than one of these judgments would be
reversed. Such a work, supported by documentary
proof, would bring to light innumerable charming
things in writers who have been condemned to rep-
robation and ridicule, and reveal at least as great a
number of stupidities and platitudes in the works of
writers who are everywhere quoted and lauded. All

i8 273

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THE GROTESQUES

the grotesque poets have not been fortunate enough,
so far as their reputation was concerned, to leave a
widow who was to become the wife of a King of
France, and this strange stroke of luck has done
a great deal to prevent the name of the author of
"Don Japhet of Armenia" from being forgotten.

Scarron was born in Paris in i6io or i6ii. He
belonged to an old family of good position which
came from Moncallier in Piedmont, where is to be
seen in the collegiate church a chapel founded about
the beginning of the thirteenth century by Louis
Scarron, who rests there under a tomb of white
marble emblazoned with his arms. His father was
Paul Scarron, a councillor in the High Court of
Parliament, who enjoyed a fortune of 25,000 livres
a year, — a very considerable sum for those times. It
would now be worth more than double. There
was a Pierre Scarron who was Bishop of 'Grenoble,
and a Jean Scarron who was lord of Vaujour. There
is nothing in all this suggestive of a 'poet and a buf-
foon ; and, without fear of passing for a false prophet,
an agreeable future might well have been predicted
for the little Scarron and his two sisters, Anne and
Fran^oise ; yet that future, apparently so bright and

274

PAUL SCARRON

plain, did pot keep its promises. Councillor Scarron
lost his wife, and heedless of the kindness which
heaven had done him by breaking an indissoluble
knot, he was fool enough to marry a second time.

Fran^oise de Plaix bore him three more children, —
two daughters, Madeleine and Claude, and a son
Nicholas. You are aware that if there is nothing
in the world to equal a mother, there is nothing
so bad as a step-mother, save a mother-in-law ; so
Fran^oise de Plaix, like the regular step-mother she
was, was not very fond of the children of the first
marriage, and tried to favour her own with all she
could get for them and for herself. Young Scarron,
when he was quite a child, noticed these performances
and did not hesitate to talk about them. He had
no great affection for his family, and was not at all
obliged to his father for presenting him with younger
brothers who would diminish his inheritance by so
much. He was already very free and caustic in
speech, and launched at his step-mother stinging re-
marks which still further embittered the hatred that
existed between them. In a word, he managed so
well that it became impossible for him to remain in his
father's house. The livelong day there was nothing

275

THE GROTESQUES

but trouble and quarrels, so that the councillor, a
most worthy man but a very weak father, was obliged
to sacrifice him for the sake of peace in the household
and sent him to a relative at Charlevoix. He re-
mained there a couple of years, and then, exile having
softened the ferocious temper of his step-mother, he
returned to Paris, where he finished his studies ; after
which he took orders — minor orders, although he had
no vocation for the Church. His bilious and sanguine
temperament fitted him rather for the activity of
pleasure than for the tranquillity of meditative life,
and he possessed none of the qualities required for
the important functions of a priest; he was therefore
satisfied with minor orders, which in no wise bound
a man and did not even prevent him from wearing
a sword and being an expert duellist, like the Abbe
Gondi. The dress of the minor orders was a clean,
natty, unprofessional, almost gallant costume, which
merely meant that the person who wore it had literary
pretensions and was looking for some benefice ; for the
rest, no men could be more lay and more free from
prejudice than those in minor orders. Wearing their
dress and followed by a lackey, they could present
themselves anywhere without fear of incurring the

^^6

PAUL SCARRON

wrath of porters. Many a door which would have
remained closed, opened of itself to the abbe ; and
provided he had a bright glance, good teeth, and a
clever wit, he was welcomed by great lords and great
ladies.

Possessing wit and a bright mind, of honourable
family, and having some money from his father, Paul
Scarron was bound to be successful in society. He
frequented the gallant and witty company of the day ;
he was welcomed at Marion de Lorme's and Ninon de
Lenclos', the two professional beauties of the day, who
drew to their houses all the most illustrious and re-
markable people, all the greatest names and the clever-
est wits of the court and the town. There must have
occurred in these great houses of the Place Royale and
the Street des Tournelles — for at that time the Marais
was the great and fashionable quarter — many a charm-
ing talk, many a piquant divagation on all sorts of
subjects. The delicate epicureanism of St. Evremond,
the sallies of Chapelle, the bacchanal jollity of Bachau-
mont, introduced into the conversation of the nobles a
literary element which sufficed to prevent the com-
monplaceness of vulgar talk, without, however, falling
into preciosity and incomprehensibility, as did the com-

277

THE GROTESQUES

pany of the Hotel de Rambouillet. Scarron could onl-\
profit by such intercourse, and there is no doubt that
he acquired there that freedom of pleasantry, that happy
■facility of joking, and that playfulness which, if it is
not always in good taste, is at least never forced, and
which brings a smile to lips the least inclined to
laughter.

In the miscellaneous poems of Scarron are found
two short pieces of verse, the one addressed to Marion
de Lorme, the other to Ninon de Lenclos, which tes-
tify to his very friendly relations with these two famous
courtesans. They are interesting in that they show
us in what light their contemporaries looked upon
these two rivals of Phryne and Aspasia. Here is the
handsel addressed to Marion de Lorme : —

" Delight of the eyes and torture of the soul,
Beauty who every day light so many flames,
This little madrigal

For a New Year's gift is all that I can offer you.
But in return I ask of you,
That instead of giving me one.
Your eyes full of charms
Mine will kindly spare.
So that they may not burn me up
As so many another they have burned."

The next is addressed to Ninon : —
1^8

PAUL SCAR RON

" O beauteous and charming Ninon,
Whom never shall one gainsay
Whatever she pleases to order,
So great is the authority-
Enjoyed everywhere by the young
Who to wit beauty join :
On this first day of the New Year
I have nothing good enough or fine enough
To make into a gift for you.
With my good wishes be satisfied, —
And a headache then I consent to have
If from my very heart they do not come.
So to you, then, I wish, Ninon,
A not ill-tempered husband, handsome, good j
Plenty of game, all Lent through.
Good Spanish wine and chestnuts large.
Plenty of money, lacking which every one is sad and dull.
And which all esteem as much as Scarron does."

To wish that Ninon should have a husband ! rather
a funny wish. What would she have done with
one?

Our young poet lived thus until he was twenty-four,
giving serious thought to nothing save pleasure, and
wrapped up in the charms of numerous intrigues. In
those days it was considered proper for every young
man in society to make a trip to Italy. Scarron did
not fail to follow the fashion. He was in Rome in
1634, and there met Maynard, the poet. The sight

279

THE GROTESQUES

of the noble ruins, the solemn melancholy of the city,
in which every stone calls up remembrances in which
the past overwhelms the present, made no impression
whatever on young Scarron ; picturesqueness did not
affect him. He looked at the city of the Caesars in
the same way as did Saint-Amant, who, however, had
to a high degree a feeling for the marvels of art and of
nature. He returned from Rome as he had gone to it,
and his vocation for the Church does not seem to have
been increased by a close view of the Pope, the
cardinals, and the monks.

Scarron was not always the victim of gout, the
cripple, the hollow-chested and hump-backed paralytic
who grimaces on the frontispiece of his works. In an
epistle to the reader who has never seen him, he speaks
thus of his past and of his present condition : —

" Reader, you who have never seen me, and do not
regret it, because there is no great profit in seeing a
person shaped as I am, know that I should not care to
have you see me, had I not learned that certain offi-
cious wits amuse themselves at the expense of wretched
me and depict me as being quite different from what I
am. Some say that I am a cripple ; others that I have
no thighs, and that I am placed in a sheath on the table,

PAUL SCARRON

where I chatter like a blind magpie ; others that my
hat is hung from a cord that runs through a pulley,
and that I pull it up and down to salute those who
pay me visits. I feel conscientiously that I am bound
to prevent their lying any longer, and that is why I
have caused to be made the engraving placed at the
beginning of my book. You will grumble, no doubt, —
for every reader grumbles, and I grumble like every-
body else when I am the reader, — you will grumble,
I sav, and you will object to my giving you only a
back view of myself. Certainly it is not because I
want to turn my back upon the company, but only
because my convex back is better fitted to bear an
inscription than my concave stomach which is over-
hung by my drooping head, and because from that side,
as well as from the other, the topography, or rather,
the irregular plan of my person can be seen. Without
claiming to make a present to the public, for I swear
by the nine Muses that I have never ventured to hope
that my head would be reproduced upon a medal, I
would willingly have had my portrait painted if any
painter had dared to undertake it. For the lack of a
portrait by a painter, I shall tell you pretty much what
I am like.

28^^

THE GROTESQUES

" I am over thirty-eight, as you can see on the back

of my chair, and if I live to be forty I shall add a good

deal of suffering to what I have already borne for eight

or nine years past. I had a good figure, though small;

disease has made me shorter by a foot. My head is

rather too large for my body ; my face is round enough,

though my body is thin ; I have hair enough not to

have to wear a wig, and I have a great many white

hairs in spite of the proverb. Although my eyes, which

are blue, are large, I enjoy pretty good sight ; one of

my eyes is more sunken than the other, on the side to

which my head falls ; my nose is rather well-shaped ;

my teeth, which were formerly like square pearls, are

now the colour of wood, and soon will be slate-coloured;

I have lost one and a half on the left side and two and

a half on the right, and there are other two which are

somewhat chipped. My legs and thighs, at first, made

an obtuse angle, then a right angle, then an acute

angle ; my thighs and my body make another, and as

my head falls upon my stomach, I am not unlike the

letter Z. My arms as well as my legs have been

drawn up, my fingers also ; — in a word, I am a

crumpled up specimen of human wretchedness. That

is just about what I am like. Since I have started on
__

PAUL SCARRON

this fine business, I may as well tell you something
of my temper; besides, this introduction is written
merely to swell out the book by the request of the
bookseller, who was afraid that it would not pay
for the printing ; otherwise it would be very un-
necessary,— just as much as many others. But this
is not the first time that people have done foolish
things out of kindness, besides those which they do
for themselves.

" I have always been somewhat hot-headed, some-
what of a gourmand, somewhat lazy. I often call my
valet a fool, and a minute later I call him 'sir.' I
hate no one, — God grant that no one hate me ! I
am very happy when I have got money, but I should
be still happier if I had health. I rather enjoy com-
pany ; I am pretty well satisfied when I am alone ; I
bear my ills fairly patiently — But it seems to me
that my introduction is rather long, and it is time that
I should bring it to a close."

In a letter to Marigny, he says : " When I think
that I enjoyed good health until I was twenty-seven
years old, — health enough to have drunk like a Ger-
man even ! " His " Typhon " contains a passage in
which the poet speaks of the beginning of his trouble,

28^

THE GROTESQUES

which came upon him at the time of the birth of Louis
XIV. This is the passage : —

*' I have been a martyr ever since
From the most adorable body
Of our Queen, whom I love so much,
Came forth Louis XIV,
Louis called the God-given,
For France's hap well born."

Louis XIV was born in 1638, so Scarron was about

twenty-eight when he lost his health and gained his

talent.

It was some time after he returned from Rome that

he felt the first of the strange pains from which he

suffered without respite to the day of his death. The

cause of his illness is not very clear. According to

one account, probably apocryphal, Scarron took it into

his head during the carnival to disguise himself as a

bird. In carrying out this notion, he first of all stripped

himself naked and rubbed himself all over with honey ;

after which he ripped open a feather-bed, and rolled

himself in it so that the down of the feathers stuck to

his skin and gave him the appearance of a real bird.

Thus feathered he paid several visits to houses where

the joke was thought most amusing and in the best of
-—

d«* •««• «*« «!<• aiM •^w ••• •»• •*• •¥• ••• "^ •»• •**• •'^ •** •^ •*• •*• ••• ••• •*• **'* ""^

PAUL SCARRQN

taste. But the heat causing the honey to melt, the
feathers began to come off and betrayed the nakedness
of Scarron, to the great scandal of the populace, who
started to pursue him. Terrified by the shouting, he
took to flight and concealed himself in a swamp, where
he sank up to his neck. The cold of the water struck
home, and he was seized with rheumatism which
twisted his limbs and made him impotent and a cripple.
Less kindly contemporaries, such as Tallemant des
Reaux and Cyrano de Bergerac, attributed this sickness
to another cause, to which the somewhat licentious
life led by the young abbe lends a good deal of prob-
ability. In those days remedies were often worse than
the disease ; men were sometimes cured of the one,
they were not always cured of the others. We may
suppose that Scarron was not at first so much of a
cripple as he later became. The kindly biographers
merely state that a caustic lymph attacked his nerves
and reduced him to a state of continuous suiFering. So
the epitaph which the poor devil composed for himself,
and in which one meets with the thought underlying
the inscription on the tomb of Trivulcius, Hie quiescit
qui numquam quievit^ tace, is more truthful than that
kind of verse usually is : —

^8^

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THE GROTESQUES

" He who now sleeps here
Excited pity more than envy.
And suffered death a thousand times
Before he lost his life.
Make no noise, O passer-by,
Beware of waking him ;
For this is the very first night
That poor Scarron sleep has known."

The Stoics denied the existence of pain and sup-
ported it with constancy, with a determined insensibility
with which the pride of their school and the obstinacy
imparted by their doctrine had perhaps more to do than
real resignation. To suffer and not complain is no
doubt a very fine thing, but it takes a great deal more
strength of soul to turn one's tortures into jokes, to
draw from the subject innumerable buffooneries, and
to smile in the presence of very ill luck. To turn
one's suffering into derision without seeking to pro-
voke the pity of others, — pity, that " balm of the
unhappy " — to play that part for many long years,
without the cry of anguish breaking in upon the bursts
of laughter, seems to us much more truly philosophical
than all the empty declamations of the Sophists. We
would like very much to see burlesque verses by Zeno
written during an attack of sciatica or rheumatism ; I

PAU L SCARRQN

doubt whether they would be found to contain the
least approach to a joke.

The burlesque style, of which Scarron is unquestion-
ably not the inventor, but in which he excelled and
which he summed up, as it were, has had both ad-
mirers and detractors. The word burlesque in itself
is not very ancient, it does not appear much before
1640 or 1650 ; before that time it had not crossed the
Pyrenees. Sarrazin, says Menage, was the first to
make use of it in France, where nevertheless the
thing it represents existed, but it was then designated by
the term grotesque. The etymology of " grotesque " is
grutta.^ a name given to those rooms of antiquity which
have been brought to light by excavations, and the
walls of which were covered with animals ending in
foliage, winged chimeras, genii issuing from the ca-
lyxes of flowers, palaces of strange architecture, and
many another caprice and fantasy. " Burlesque " comes
from the Italian burla., which means a joke, a piece of
fun, and from which are derived hurlesco and burlare.
Burla^i adopted by the Italians, is originally a Castilian
word. Burladores is the name given in Spain to jets
of water concealed in the grass, which suddenly spring
up under foot and soak unsuspecting pedestrians.

^87

THE GROTESQUES

The comedy of Tirso de Molina, which is the
model Moliere used for his " Don Juan," bears
for its title, EI Burlador de Sevilla^ the word hav-
ing in its Spanish meaning a more derisive and Ironi-
cal significance ; for he who invites a stone statue
to sup with him may be a mocker, but unquestion-
ably he is no buffoon. This style came into gen-
eral use. Since the days of Panurge especially, and
even a good while before, France has been above
all others the country of imitation j for the French,
who are so bold on the field of battle and in perilous
situations, are extremely timid on paper, and our na-
tion, so mad and so frivolous, as observers say, is the
one which has always preserved the deepest respect for
rules and which has been least venturesome in litera-
ture. The moment they take a pen in their hands the
French, who are so rash, are filled with hesitation and
anxiety ; they tremble lest they shall essay something
new, not to be found in authors of the fashionable air.
So, if an author becomes popular, immediately a multi-
tude of books made after the fashion of his own appear.
It would be wrong to attribute this spirit of imitation
to the lack of invention or of individual capacity ; it is
merely a deference to fashion, a fear of appearing to be

PAUL SCARRON

wanting in taste. France is about the only country
where the word original applied to an individual is al-
most an insult. Every Frenchman who writes is a
prey to the fear of ridicule ; and that is why, when a
style or a literary genre has been adopted by the public,
all the authors adopt it, glad to be relieved of the re-
sponsibility of having a style of their own. The fact
that the success of a work gives rise to a group of
works of the same kind is no new thing. Every
period has a popular poem or novel of which numer-
ous imitations are produced ; and it would be an in-
teresting piece of work to write the history of these
kindred families. For this reason our literature is
poorer than any other in eccentric works, the general
tone being met with in the greater number of con-
temporary writers, and the particular colour of e\ery
period being due to a particular success. Scarron's
success let loose a perfect flood of burlesque poetry, or
rather of verses which claimed to be burlesque. Sub-
jects least fitted to pleasantry were treated in this wav.
Brebeuf himself, the pompous author of "• Pharsalia,"
wrote the coldest and most wearisome parody of Lucan,
so widespread was the taste for burlesque. Every one
dabbled in it, even the footmen and the ladies' maids;

19 289

THE GROTESQUES

for most people thought that it was quite enough to
string together burlesque rimes, extravagant and coarse
words, — in a word, to speak the tongue of the market-
place, — to become a comic poet. The octosyllabic
verse with simple rimes, which Scarron almost invari-
ably made use of and in which he wrote " Typhon "
and "Virgil Travestied," offers facilities which it is
difficult not to take advantage of. In the hands of
a mediocre versifier it soon becomes looser and less
elevated than careless prose, and offers naught to com-
pensate the ear but a rime which wearies by its im-
mediate repetition. When well handled, this verse
(which is that in which the Spanish romances and
comedies are written) is capable of producing new and
varied effects. To us it seems better fitted than the
pompous and redundant alexandrine to familiar dia-
logue, to bright details, and we wish it could be used
on the stage. It would save us many a stereotyped
hemistich, which the best and most careful poets can
scarcely get rid of, so surely do the indispensable
caesura and the rime of hexameter verse compel their
use. The octosyllabic verse, in consequence of its
being used especially for buffooneries, was called the
burlesque verse, although it lends itself equally well to

290

PAUL SCARRON

noble and §erious expression. It is in that metre that
worthy Loret, the journalist of his time, wrote his
" Historic Muse."

The burlesque, or, if you prefer it, the grotesque,
has always existed both in art and nature, as a con-
trast and a set-off. The world is full of animals the
nature and existence of which are inexplicable save
by the law of opposition -, their ugliness evidently
serves to bring out the beauty of the higher and
nobler beings. But for the demon, the angel would
not be as splendid as he is, and the toad makes the
beauty of the humming-bird more remarkable and
striking. Life is manifold, and many heterogeneous
elements enter into the make-up of facts and events.
The most touching situation has its comical side, and
laughter often breaks out through tears. Any art,
therefore, which seeks to be true, is bound to admit
both sides. Tragedy and comedy are too arbitrary in
their exclusiveness ; no action can be wholly terrifying
or wholly amusing. There are very comical sides to
the most serious events, and very sad ones to the
most farcical adventures. Tragedy and comedy are
therefore classical poems, since, in accordance with
conventions settled on beforehand, they reject the

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THE GROTESQUES

expression of certain feelings and certain ideas. The
somewhat dry, clear-cut French mind accepts readily
enough these divisions and compartments in the domain
of art. Weep or laugh, then, through five acts, if
you like ; but that desire for harmony and regularity
can be satisfied only through the sacrifice of colour
and tone. The result is a monochrome literature
which resembles the combats of gladiators painted in
red ochre of which Horace speaks, or the camaieu
paintings with which the artists of the last century
adorned panels and bavs. One poem is blue, another
green ; the modelling is brought out, as in gray
monochromes, by the contrast of light and shade ;
in neither are the varied tints of nature harmoniously
combined. We shall not, because we happen to be
speaking of Scarron, re-state here the thesis of the
grotesque so eloquently maintained in a famous pre-
face. From the time of Malherbe the French lan-
guage has been the victim of an absolutely amazing
fit of pruderv and preciosity as regards ideas and
expressions. Every detail was proscribed as being
familiar, every word in ordinary use as being low or
prosaic. Writers came to use some five or six hundred
words only, and the literary language was, by com-

292

PAUL SCARRON

parison with the ordinary tongue, like an abstract
dialect for the sole use of scholars. Side by side with
this highly aristocratic and disdainful poetry arose a
style thoroughly in opposition to it, but certainly just
as false, the burlesque, which insisted on looking only
at the deformed and grimacing aspect of things, care-
fully seeking triviality, and making use of popular or
ridiculous expressions only. It was the opposite
excess, that is all. Wc willingly accept buffoonery,
the invention of comic details, the lightsomeness of
style, the delightful strangeness of words, the unex-
pectedness and comicality of rimes, and the wildest
fancies in every style of writing ; but we confess we
cannot understand parody and travesty. " Virgil
Travestied," one of Scarron's chief works, which
gained him his reputation, is unquestionably one of
those which we least like, although it is full of amus-
ing hits and droll lines. For what does it mean, after
all ? To substitute for the hero a dull, clownish cit,
for a fair princess a coarse kitchen wench, and to
make these characters speak the language of the
market-place, is not in itself a very amusing perform-
ance. There is no masterpiece which could not, by
applying this process, be made as dull as ditchwater.

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THE GROTESQUES

We can understand parody in the critical sense ; that
is, by making use of a certain humorous exaggeration
to bring out the defects of the work travestied, to
make the ridicule or the danger of it more striking,
as in " Don Quixote," when the hero speaks of
Amadis of Gaul, of Galaor, Agesilan of Colchos,
Lancelot of the Lake, Esplandian, and other romances
of chivalry. We have seen the parodies of all the
plays which have met with success for the past ten
years, and although it is true that there is, even in the
least envious of men, a little feeling of malevolence
which makes him listen with a certain satisfaction to
pleasantries directed against a popular tragedy or
drama, we must confess we have never derived the
least enjoyment from these performances. Scarron,
by the way, shared our opinion about parodies, and
the manner in which he speaks of them in a letter to
M. Deslandes-Payen, to whom he dedicates the fifth
canto of " Virgil Travestied," proves a modesty which
is almost unjust: "I am ready to declare under my
hand and seal, in the presence of whomsoever you
please, that the paper which I use up in writing is so
much spoilt paper, and that one would be justified in
asking me, as was asked of Ariosto, where I find so

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PAUL SCARRON

many. . . . And these parodies of books, my own
' Virgil ' first and foremost, are nothing but . . . and
it is a bad omen for the compilers of coarse words,
for those who have attacked Virgil, those who have
attacked me, like a poor dog who is gnawing his bone,
and those who indulge in that form of writing as
being the easiest, — it is, I say, a very bad omen for
these most fire-deserving burlesques that this year,
which has produced them in such numbers and which
perhaps has been as much troubled by them as by
chafers, should not have produced an abundance of
corn. Perhaps the best minds, which have been
enrolled to keep our language clean and sweet, will
regulate the matter, and the punishment of the first
joker who shall be convicted of having relapsed into
the burlesque, and therefore condemned to work the
rest of his life for the idlers of the New Bridge,
will dispel the regrettable storm of burlesque which
threatens the realm of Apollo. For my part, I
am always ready to abjure a style which has spoilt
every one ; and but for the express order of a per-
son of rank who has full power over me, I should
leave ' Virgil ' to those who want it so much, and
I should be satisfied with my fruitless post of invalid,

295

THE GROTESQUES

which is more than sufficient to keep a whole man

busy."

It appears from this letter that Scarron did not lack
for imitators and copyists, and that he had to fight for
his parody of " Virgil." The method of publication
that he had adopted favoured frauds by writers who
wished to continue the work. At first he was to
have published one canto a month, but whether suffer-
ing prevented his doing so, or whether — which is
more likely — he got sick and weary of the work, he
did not punctually fulfil his engagement, and there
were long delays between the times of the publication
of the different parts of his poem. To keep up so
prolonged a joke certainly needs all the spirit of
Scarron, his masterly skill in handling the octosyllabic
line, his readiness in inventing unexpected rimes
and piquant turns, suspensions, bold overlappings,
curious caesuras, — in a word, whatever can vary such
a long work. Even in the midst of innumerable
incongruities, each more startling than its predecessor,
occur passages really well written, the familiar literal-
ness of which reproduces the antique very much better
than the serious translations in a fine style. Judicious
remarks comment the text. " ' Be just and fear the

296

PAUL SCARRON

gods.' This maxim is sound and good, but of what
use is it in hell ? " It is impossible to ridicule more
wittily the famous line, —

<• Discite justltiam nionitl et non temnere divos ! "

" The -^neid Travestied " was never carried beyond
the eighth canto. The " Comic Romance " itself is
unfinished, either through caprice or fatigue. We
rather like those interrupted books which compel the
imagination of the reader to invent the close.

The " Virgil " was continued, if it may be called
continued, by a certain Jaques Moreau, Marquis or
Count of Brazey, and by another writer whose name
has remained unknown. It is difficult to read any-
thing flatter, more vulgar, and more insipid. OfFray
did not meet with much more success in his continua-
tion of the " Comic Romance." The immortal au-
thor of " Don Quixote," Don Miguel Cervantes de
Saavedra, having allowed a long interval to elapse
between the publication of the first and the latter part
of his novel, suffered also from the unpleasantness of
having his work continued by a sacrilegious scribbler;
but Cid Hamet-Ben-Engeli hung his pen so high up
that no one since then has been able to take it
down.

297

THE GROTESQUES

" Typhon," which was composed before " Virgil
Travestied," is a burlesque poem on the war of the
gods and the giants. It contains five cantos in
octosyllabic verse. If ever there was a sinister and
grandiose mythological personage, it surely is the
shapeless monster which Juno, jealous of her husband's
creation, — he having brought forth Pallas alone, —
caused to spring from the ground. His gigantic revolt
has a mysterious and cosmogonic character as terrify-
ing as the bassi-relievl carved in the caves of EUora,
which represent events the memory and symbolical
meaning of which have been lost, but which one feels
must have been terrible. Typhon nearly made heaven
and earth change places. He slashed off Jupiter's legs
and arms with a diamond scythe, and filled the inhabit-
ants of Olympus with such panic terror that, in order
to escape, they assumed the shape of animals or of
vegetables, under which forms they were worshipped
by the Egyptians. His aspect was formidable and
monstrous. He had a hundred heads, and from his
hundred mouths came forth flames and such awful
cries that gods and men trembled at the sound. The
principal part of his body was covered with feathers,
the lower part spread out into dragon's-tails. This

298

PAUL S.CARRON

giant, repulsive though he was, managed to marry,
and by Echidna, his spouse, had a whole hideous
family of monsters : Orcus, Cerberus, the Lernean
Hydra, the Chimaera, the Sphinx, the Nemaean lion.
Finally Jupiter, having recovered his legs and arms,
thanks to the skill of Mercury and Pan, sprang on a
car drawn by winged horses and hurled his lightnings
so fiercely and constantly at Typhon that he over-
threw him ; and, to prevent his rising again, he placed
upon his breast Mount iEtna, which since then has
never ceased to hurl against heaven, as a mark of
contempt and revolt, blasts of flame, rocks, torrents
of lava, and whirlwinds of smoke.

Now, here is how Scarron has caricatured the epic
subject and reproduced the colossal struggle.

At the opening of the poem the gods are feasting in
a macaronic Olympus after the manner of the country
of Cocaigne ; they have drunk more nectar than is
good for them and have surfeited themselves with
ambrosia. Jupiter is asleep with his head on the
table ; Juno is stretched out on her couch with very
little on her ; Mars, who has just come from Flanders,
is drinking beer and smoking tobacco like a regular
trooper. As for Venus, she is ogling a young, beard-

299

THE GROTESQUES

less god, whom she proposes to initiate into the mys-
teries of love.

Typhon and his friends the giants are also enjoying
themselves on earth in their own fashion. They are
playing at skittles in the fields of Thessaly. You un-
derstand, of course, that the nine-pins of these fellows
are no mere children's toys ; they are huge rocks —
as high as the steeple of Strasburg Cathedral — which
Typhon has rooted up with his powerful hands and
roughly fashioned into shape. A huge piece of a
mountain scarcely rough-hewn serves as a bowl. The
bowling party causes earthquakes all through the coun-
tryside. The giants, however, have not yet warmed
up ; they are playing carefully, as is the way at first.
Little by little the game becomes more animated, and
Mimas, hurling the bowl, hits Typhon's foot just upon
his tender corn. Typhon, crazed with pain but unable
to blame Mimas, who did not do it on purpose, picks
up the nine-pins and hurls them into the air with such
vigour that they break through the blue vault of heaven
and fall upon the dresser of the gods, smashing all the
glass-ware and china. Jupiter wakes with a start at
the crash of the broken crockery, and asks in a trans-
port of rage what such a bacchanalian performance

300

PAUL SCARRON

means. " Your Majesty," replies Pallas, " it is the
work of some frightful engine directed from the earth
against the heavens, which has caused the damage on
your dresser. All the glasses are broken, and here-
after we shall have to drink out of the palms of our
hands like beggars or cynical philosophers." "It is
nine-pins and a bowl," adds Momus, the pretty buffoon.
••' So," says Jupiter, " heaven can be broken into ! It
can be burst open as if it were a paper ceiling. We
are no longer safe in this azure concern. The sons
of earth are becoming more and more insolent, but I
shall take them down pretty quickly. I shall thunder
and hail and rain on them in such fashion that they
will soon return to their duty."

The conversation has reached this point when en-
ters Apollo, who has finished his day's work, stabled
his nags, and put his car in the barn. Naturally he is
better informed than any one of what happens on earth,
which, in virtue of his rank as Grand Duke of the
Candles (a title given to him by Dubartas), it is his
business to illumine. He saw Typhon, who was play-
ing with his company in Thessaly, hurling the nine-
pins toward heaven. " That rascal is making me mad
at last, and I am getting pretty Olympically angry,"

301

THE GROTESQUES

says Jupiter, bending his moleskin brows. " Here,
Mercury, put on as quickly as you can your winged
shoes — they have just been re-soled ; and you go and
tell that scamp that if he does not keep quiet he will
have me to deal with," The son of Cyllene puts on
his travelling-cap, ties his wings on his feet with a
piece of stout cord, takes his stick entwined with eels,
bows like a chorister boy, and is off. He flashes
through the air, traverses the clouds, and stops upon
Helicon only to have a bite and a sup. There he
finds the Nine Muses busy sifting rondeaus, winnow-
ing sonnets, and picking out "Joys" and "Regrets."
It is natural to old maids and devotees to practise the
manufacture of preserves, so the Muses present Mer-
cury with a pot of cherries and the remains of a pasty
which Apollo had cut into the night before. When
Mercury has eaten, he wipes his mouth with the back
of his hand, like a well-bred god who has not been fur-
nished with a napkin, and he starts off again at the
double to fulfil his commission.

At dusk he reaches the place where are the giants.
It is still light enough to see, but Night soon shakes
out her skirts spangled with stars. The rascals are in
a plain not far from a forest, building a huge pile, on

302

PAUL SCARRON

which they propose to grill some meat. The whole
forest is cut down for the purpose. It makes a vast
heap of knotty oaks, of branching pines, of uprooted
elms, so that one might well believe they proposed to
burn down the earth. Hundreds of oxen, still yoked
to the ploughs and cut in quarters, are roasting on that
ocean of coals ; thousands of sheep, stuck like larks
upon spits made of whole cypresses, are turning slowly
in front of the fire. The supper must have caused a
whole nation to starve.

The giants surround Mercury, who does not feel
particularly brave when he sees closing around him
that band of monstrous bodies. However, he sum-
mons up all his courage and addresses the following
speech to Typhon, who looks at him crossly and with
his most frightful mien : " Sir Typhon, in spite of your
giant size you are only a big rascal. Jove, my master
and yours, has sent me to tell you that you have got
to keep yourselves quiet henceforth, otherwise he will
unhesitatingly smite you with lightnings. You have
smashed up all our crockery, and you have got to start
at once for Venice to fetch a hundred glasses to re-
place those broken by your nine-pins. Who breaks,
pays, — you are drunkard enough to know that maxim.

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THE GROTESQUES

You have a week to do it in, but not another minute.
And now, good-night."

Mercury has scarcely ended his speech when a for-
midable howl, fit to deafen the four elements, issues
from mouths bigger than ovens, from chests deeper
than caverns. Mercury nearly bleeds at the ears from
it, like a gunner who has been firing the whole day.
" Get out of this quickly, you ass, you fool, or I will
push you alive into the fire ! " shouts Typhon, " I
laugh at your master and his fireworks and crackers."
Thereupon the colossus begins to devour, with his
band, mountains of half-grilled flesh, and soon goes to
sleep by the dying fire, after having put under his head,
by way of a pillow, a rock which fifty thousand men
could not budge.

Poor Mercury, much terrified, climbs a tree, in which
he perches till the return of dawn, the roads not being
very safe, and infested with highwaymen. Day having
come he gets off his perch and starts on his way. He
finds Jupiter still in bed, but the god scarcely takes
time to put on a dressing-gown, so eager is he to learn
the news brought from earth by his messenger. " All
I could get in replv," says Mercury to the master of
the gods, " was impertinence. The insolent fellows

PAUL SCARRON

laughed in my face, and they very nearly played prac-
tical jokes upon me. Typhon in particular received me
as if I had been a peddler. May I be smitten with
seven-years itch if I have not said the truth, as naked
as when it rose out of its well."

The council of the gods is assembled, and the ques-
tion as to whether active measures shall be taken or not
is discussed. The giants also are consulting and stir-
ring. Enceladus, whose name rimes so happily in
French with escalade, insists upon fetching Jupiter out
of his aerial cubbyhole, and proposes to turn out all the
inhabitants of the starry mansions ; he does not need
any one to help him in this enterprise, he will himself
have all the danger and all the glory, Typhon joyfully
listens to his bluster, and the whole giant band shouts
in acquiescence. Mimas brays with delight; Porphy-
rion stretches out his wild-beast's claws ; Polybotes,
with a snout like a whale's, grunts heavily ; Asius, the
great bear-slayer, Thaon, Ephialtes, Coeus, lapetus,
Echion, Almops, all shout as if they were mad, " Long
live Typhon ! Death to the gods ! "

Meanwhile Jupiter curses and swears in his Olym-
pus like a carter in a hollow road in Lower Brittany.
The stock of ammunition is inspected, and proves to
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be not very considerable; Mercury, the factotum, is
therefore sent off to the vapour-producing god. This
deity refuses at first to give clouds on credit, for a large
amount is already owing him, — no one being paid in
heaven ; yet in view of the urgent danger, he replies
that he will send up enough to satisfy Master Jove.
Mercury, on his way, puts into his pocket the " Ga-
zette " and the " Extra," which contain information
about the forces of the giants.

The council of the gods resembles very much a ter-
restrial council. The members dispute upon the order
of their going and precedence. Neptune, who is no
great orator and is only good at grumbling, gets tangled
up in his speech. Mars plays the part of Captain
Slasher, the mountain-slicer ; with the mere wind of
his sword he will overthrow the army of the giants.
Vulcan offers to make such complicated gratings and
locks for the windows and doors of Olympus that
Typhon will break his nails on them. The day is
wasted in ridiculous discussions, and Jupiter adjourns
the meeting. Every one returns to his own place with-
out matters having progressed in the least.

At the beginning of the third canto Apollo sends up
the clouds called for. They are clouds of the best

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PAUL SCARRON

quality, full of nitre, sulphur, and rosin ; the air is dark-
ened by them ; never was a London fog so thick.
Under cover of those clouds, u'hich prevent the earth
being seen from heaven, Enceladus begins to pile up
one mountain on another like a mason laying bricks.
He heaps Pelion on Ossa, and makes such a prodigious
pile that he gets as high as the lodging of the Olym-
pians, the walls of which he reaches by means of a fly-
ing bridge. Jupiter, wanting to find out what kind of
weather it is outside, opens a window and is horribly
scared at finding himself face to face with the mon-
strous giant. Happily, the window is too narrow for
the latter to pass through. Jupiter shouts, " Help,
help ! " calls for his powder-box, rolls up his shirt-
sleeves, and prepares to launch a thunderbolt at the
giant's head ; but the latter, seeing his danger, shoves
into the window the huge trunk of a cedar. Jupiter
narrowly escapes being spitted and stuck against the
wall like an owl on a gamekeeper's door. The alarm
is given. The gods cast over the battlements of the
celestial ramparts faggots, lumps of plaster, stools,
liquids of all sorts except scents, and pans full of boil-
ing butter. Enceladus is hit on the mouth by one, and
although the butter is ver)' hot, it cools his courage and
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induces him to give up his place to Mimas, who, being
rather thinner, succeeds in making his way through the
opening.

The battle now becomes general. Jupiter mounts
his eagle and heads a sortie, accompanied by all the
gods. His lightnings at first terrify the giants, but they
are more scared than hurt. Mars and Enceladus chal-
lenge each other to single combat ; they turn out to be
so formidable that they turn their backs upon each
other after an exchange of insults like Homeric heroes.
During the battle an old gipsy succeeds in sending to
Jupiter by a footman a letter couched thus : " Tiresias
and Proteus have foretold that this war can end to the
glory of the gods only through the help of the son of
a mortal woman. Such is the decree of fate." Th-s
piece of information causes deep discouragement
throughout Olympus, and the gods are already beaten
when Typhon returns with fresh giants clad in armour
of stone. The rout is complete, and Jupiter takes to
his heels, shouting, " Save himself who can ! " The
gods and goddesses follow his example, sprinting like
Basques or record runners. To escape the huge ras-
cals, who are following them with strides longer than
Jack the Giant Killer's with his seven-leagued boots,

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PAUL SCAR RON

they are obliged to conceal themselves by assuming the
shapes of animals. Jupiter turns into a ram, Juno into
a cow, as she is entitled to do through her name /^ocoTrt?;
Neptune into a greyhound, Momus into a monkey,
Apollo into a crow, Bacchus into a goat. Pan into a
rat, Diana into a cat, Venus into a kid. Mercury into a
stork. The giants, who are naturally rather dull, do
not know what has become of their enemies, and while
they are looking for them, these, protected by their dis-
guise, succeed in reaching the banks of the Nile, where
they will wait for a change of fortune and for the time
when they shall have a chance to punish that impious
and brutal race.

The celestial company approaches Memphis. Jupi-
ter, who is not used to wearing wool, is very warm and
perspires freely. He drags himself painfully along ; he
has run a thorn into his foot, and falls helplessly on
the tender grass. In this attitude he bleats out a ha-
rangue in Greek, and directs Mercury to steal some
clothes, if possible, to enter the near-by town and to
fetch some garments for the gods : the pearl necklace
which Venus has kept on, will defray the cost.

Mercury, still under the appearance of a stork, flies
to the banks of the Nile, where some natives are en-

THE GROTESQUES

gaged in bathing and in looking for crocodile's eggs.
The god of thieves, who naturally is a past master in
stealing, seizes a tunic and assumes his own form, under
which he enters Memphis. He loads a mule with a
regular second-hand stock of doublets, cloaks, skirts,
and drawers, which the gods put on after having thrown
off their animal disguises. They put up at an inn, the
host of which is a cuckold and his wife a coquette,
quite a likely alliteration and connection. Soon their
godhead reveals itself by a symptom which you will
never guess, and the whole responsibility of which we
leave to Scarron's bufFoonerj' — the mysterious travel-
lers are noticeable for the delightful odour which they
exhale. This peculiarity so greatly surprises the inhab-
itants of the town that they thereupon do not hesitate
to believe their guests divine beings. It should be added
that they walk, or rather glide, without raising their feet,
as if they were skating, which is a distinctive attribute
of the higher powers. The priests of Memphis, in-
formed of these facts, bring to the celestial strangers four
puncheons of genuine balm, fish from the Nile, croco-
diles, hippopotami, and two pairs of cleaned gloves.

Hereupon Hercules, who had been busy somewhere
else, joins the celestial band, which his arrival cheers

310

PAUL SCARRON

up, and Mercury is again despatched to spy out what
the giants are doing. He finds them still heaping
mountains on mountains and turning Thcssaly into a
perfect break-neck country. Typhon has raised his
platform so high that the giants will soon be able to
sit down on Jupiter's throne ; but he has reckoned
without his host. The celestial army arrives quietly,
followed by carts filled with ammunition manufactured
in Memphis. Jupiter hurls a thunderbolt, merely,
however, to effect a diversion and to conceal the real
attack. The colossi, half asleep, turn out of bed in
their drawers, and hurry in the direction where the
thunder is pealing. While they are rubbing with their
fingers, which are as big as pillars, their eyes, which
are as big as bucklers, the gods invade their camp and
soon the melee becomes general. The most terrific
blows are exchanged. Several of the giants are killed,
greatlv to their annoyance, considering that they never
have been dead before that time ; and after many ups
and downs, the giants' army is routed, thanks to the
valour of Hercules, who was born of a mortal woman,
and the gipsy's prediction is fulfilled. Typhon, spring-
ing from summit to summit, legs it over the boot of
Italy and escapes to Sicily, whither Jupiter pursues

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him, overthrows him, and sticks Mount ^tna like a
nightmare on his chest, greatly to his discomfort.
Ever since, when Typhon coughs an eruption takes
place ; when he turns over an earthquake occurs.

"And thus almost always is vice
Duly punished at the last
And never did rebellion
Its punishment escape."

The gigantomachia, of which we have given a suc-
cinct summary, is full of amusing lines, of naive
expressions, of idioms unmistakably native. It is to
be regretted that the prudish taste which rules at pres-
ent and which does not permit the least freedom of
style, even in a purely philosophical and literary study,
forbids our quoting the brightest and drollest traits.
Of yore the French language did not set such high
store on seemliness in words as it does nowadays.
Our old story-tellers were allowed a freedom of speech
which no one could indulge in to-day, and in the
facetious style we count a great many masterpieces.
Rabelais, Beroalde de Verville, the Queen of Navarre,
Bonaventure Des Periers, wrote in a striking manner
and in an uncommon style, of which La Fontaine's
" Tales " give but a very dim idea. It is in the works

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PAUL SCARRON

of these authors that the real Gallic wit shows in fullesc
brilliancy, and it is a pity that English cant, which has
influenced our manners, should deprive us of those
jolly, if somewhat broad farces, in which the comical-
ness of the expression makes one forget the somewhat
licentious details. Scarron, by the innate character of
his style, clings to the old idiom, and by comparison
with several of his contemporaries he is somewhat
archaic, the burlesque style being composed of innu-
merable proverbial expressions, familiar locutions, and
popular idioms, which long persisted in conversation
after having been banished from the more elevated
style. What we have said of Scarron may be said
of other and more illustrious writers. Moliere, al-
though he writes at the same time as Racine, uses a
language which is a hundred years older. We do
not mean to cast any blame upon him in saying this,
for in our opinion Moliere's language is one of the
finest which man has ever spoken ; we mean only that
tragedy, at least as the Classicists understand it, con-
tains fewer idioms than comedy,

Boileau is not very kind to Scarron, and to his
" Typhon " in particular. Every one knows these
lines of the " Art of Poetry " : —

THE GROTESQUES

"... The court, at last enlightened.
Distinguished between simplicity and dull buffoonery.
And left it to the provinces to admire ' Typhon.' "

But Boileau, apart from the haughty delicacy of his
taste, possibly had a grudge against Scarron. Giles
Boileau, the poet's elder brother, had waged with our
author a war of epigrams. He had even gone so
far as to attack Madame Scarron's virtue in the
following : —

" Pray see on what you found your mistaken notion,
Scarron, when you think that all society
Visits you your conversation to enjoy.
What ! can you not see, fool that you are,
That if you scratched that head of yours
The reason you soon would guess .?"

Scarron, exceedingly angered, replied by a deluge of
epigrams which do not all, it must be confessed, savour
of Attic salt, but rather of coarse saltpetre. He replies
to Giles' insults by charging him with walking at night
on the Megisserie quay, the Champs-Elysees of the
day, for equivocal and monstrous assignations. It was
then the habit of scholars and literary men who quar-
relled to turn to Sodom and Gomorrah for insulting
epithets. In this case, at least, the cruelty of the
attack excuses the violence of the retort.

314

PAUL SCARRON

" Typhon," which, Boileau himself acknowledged,
began well and wittily, is dedicated to his Eminence
Cardinal Jules Mazarin. The dedication exhibits a
curious likeness to the " Mazarinade " by the same
author. Scarron calls Mazarin a great man, a Julius
greater than the great Julius, the Alcides on whom
Atlas may lean when he is weary ; he beseeches him
to cast from the summit of his Olympus a glance upon
the poor poet ; if he obtains it, he will be as pleased as
if he had recovered health and as if, being no longer
impotent, he could make a deep bow to his Eminence.
It would appear that either Mazarin did not particularly
appreciate the compliment, or that, foreseeing some
largesse which he was expected to make, some new
pension to be paid (Scarron had one already from the
Queen), he turned a deaf ear to the appeal and de-
stroyed the hopes which the poet had built upon his
dedication.

Scarron's admiration for the great Julius died out
forthwith, and a complete change took place in his
appreciation of the scarlet minister. It was in this new
frame of mind that he wrote the " Mazarinade." It
would be hard to go further in the way of outrage and
filth ; it resembles Juvenal's work without its righteous

THE GROTESQUES

indignation. Looking at it from the literary point of
view simplv, the piece, which is very long, contains
passages of remarkable fire, spirit, and wit, but of that
atrocious wit with which Catullus lights up his epi-
grams against Mamurra. He reproaches the Cardinal,
among other crimes, — and no doubt it was the black-
est in his eyes, — with keeping his purse closed to the
poor devils called poets, cherished by the late red-
capped Richelieu, who feared above all things to see
his high deeds tarnished by these divine starving ones.
He brings up against him the ballet of " Orpheus,"
which put every one to sleep ; his choir of male
soprani; his courtesans; his guards; his two hundred
dressing-gowns ; his amber and musk perfumes ; his
card-playing; his double loves in which he exhibited
himself as a man to women, and as a woman to men ;
and many another peccadillo of the same sort, which
the Cardinal, accustomed as he was to the excesses
of the pamphleteers, would not have minded, for he
had taken for his motto, " Let them sing, provided they
pay." But Scarron does not stop there ; he cuts the
Cardinal to the quick by relating the story of his loves
with a fruit girl of Alcala, — an adventure which had
cost him a thrashing and the good graces of his patron,

316

PAUL SCARRON

Cardinal Colonna. Not a single detail is omitted.
Scarron tefls how, driven out of Alcala, Mazarin goes
off" on foot, in very humble fashion, to Barcelona,
whence he returns to his country the best way he can,
and sets about rebuilding his fortunes by filling, in the
household of a purple-robed Jupiter, the office of
Ganymede. Then he casts up at him his political
blunders and crimes. He upbraids him for his insolent
simony in the matter of benefices; for having twice
failed to take Lerida ; he recalls Courtrai evacuated by
the garrison, thanks to his trickery ; the fruits of the
battle of Lens lost through his delays ; Catalonia in
despair; the Duke of Guise wretchedly lodged in
Naples, where he is abandoned ; the Duke of Beaufort
caged ; the duchy of Cardone stolen ; the late Chief-
Justice Barillon poisoned ; parliament outraged ; the
English whom he is starving to death ; their unhappy
Queen whom he has robbed of her rings, and I know
not how many black deeds more or less true, in return
for which he hopes to see —

" His disembowelled carcass
Torn to pieces by the rabble."

We have quoted merelv the gentlest insults ; the
others are marked by a virulence which the Latins

THE GROTESQUES

themselves have not surpassed. His burlesque wit is
carried to the point of ferocity ; his pleasantries are too
literally bloody, his poetic anger turns to rage, and one
is amazed that there could be so much bitterness in
that little wizened body. Father Duchene pales by
the side of Scarron, who carries very far indeed resent-
ment for the neglect of a dedication and a handsome
binding. Mazarin, who was clever enough to laugh at
good hits in the pamphlets and songs written against
him, thought this time that the joke was rather too
strong and the style rather too free ; nevertheless, it
does not appear that he sought to be avenged for it.

Scarron's apartment was the meeting place of the
Frondeurs. This was the name given, as is well
known, to the partisans of the Parliament, while those
who stood up for the royal authority were called
Mazarins. The Prince of Conde did not go there
himself, but he sent members of his household. There
were privately read " The Advice of Ten Millions
and more," " The Burlesque Courier of the War in
Paris," "The Juliad," "The Bird's Song," "The
Frondeur Triolets."

Mazarin's people also had their poets and their
writers. Cyrano de Bergerac, who belonged to the

3^8

PAUL SCARRON

Cardinal's party, launched, by way of a reply to
Scarron, wHom he designates by the transparent anagram
Ronscar, an epistle most slashingly written. Cyrano,
whose numerous duels, fought on account of the
shape of his nose, caused him to appear, even when
writing, like a hectoring bully, treats poor Scarron
most contemptuously. He tells him that he has never
seen any ridicule so serious or any seriousness so
ridiculous as his ; he accuses him of having degraded
Virgil, and calls him an angry frog croaking in the
marshes of Parnassus. He affirms that what Scarron
writes is fit only for fishwives, and that when the slang
of the market-place changes, Scarron will cease to be
understood. Then, passing to a description of the
man himself, he declares that if Death wanted to
dance a saraband, it would take a pair of Ronscars
for castanets. For ten years past the Fates have
twisted his neck without succeeding in choking him.
To see his arms twisted and stiffened upon his hips,
his body might be mistaken for a gallows on which
the devil had hanged a soul. And such a soul ! More
hideous than its body. That deformed monster,
allowed to remain on earth as a living example of
the vengeance of God, has dared to vomit its slime

THE GROTESQUES

and venom upon the purple of a prince of the Church
who, under the auspices of Louis, directs so successfully
the greatest state in Christendom. The sight of a
scarlet hat drives him wild, like a bull or a turkey-
cock, and he even refused to listen to " a sweet son-
net " of Cyrano's, and forced the person who had opened
it to put it back in his pocket. — Certainly we cannot
doubt that Cyrano de Bergerac did profess great
admiration for Cardinal Mazarin and was entirely
devoted to him, and yet that little rather sweet son-
net, " which must have seemed tasteless to so highly
spiced a man," had probably something to do with
this exhibition of wrath.

Scarron, moreover, was unlucky with dedications.
His father, who was a man of curious temper, a sort
of Cynical philosopher, queer and strange in his
behaviour, was imprudent enough to enter into a plot
with some of the councillors in order to traverse a
design which the Cardinal-Duke Armand de Richelieu
was greatly bent on carrying out. The wearer of the
scarlet robe was not accustomed to deal gently with '
political pranks, and yet he showed comparative
clemency when he was satisfied with exiling Councillor
Scarron to Touraine. Fortunately for him, the good

320

PAUL SCARRO N

man had some property near Amboise. Thither he
withdrew, and kept quiet. Our poet, who knew the
Cardinal to bear a grudge as long as a Spaniard and
to be as vindictive as a Corsican, allowed some time
to pass. When he thought that the Cardinal's re-
sentment at the affair had died down, he ventured to
address a petition to his Eminence, a step which had
been rendered the more necessary owing to the fact
that during the absence of Scarron senior the step-
mother, who had remained in Paris, had left no stone
unturned to get possession of all the property, and that
the pension of the poor invalid, as may be readily
believed, was not very regularly paid. In this petition,
one of his best poems, he begs of his lordship the
Cardinal to pardon his father, whom he excuses to the
best of his ability. Since that unfortunate exile, Paul,
son of Paul, had fallen a victim to a very dangerous
malady : —

" It is poverty, which destroys all minds
And all bodies when them it takes.
It seized on me when that poor father mine.
Who to you alone looks for recovery,
Was seized with a certain ill one gets in Parliament
And which nowhere else is to be feared.
This disease, named a zeal for investigation.
Is in our day making many a head sore."

321

THE GROTESQUES

While asking leave for his father to return, he asks also
to be given some small benefice, but he does this in a
timid, side fashion, and merely to put his name down
for a vacancy. The petition closes with these four
verses, — that is, in vile prose in the year 1642 : —

" Done at Paris on this last day of October,
By me, Scarron, who against my will am sober,
In the year that famous Perpignan was taken,
And without a cannon-shot the town of Sedan."

This was flattering the Cardinal in a way to which
he was very sensitive ; so when Scarron's epistle was
read to him, he approved of it as rather neatly turned,
and repeated several times that it was amusingly dated.
Unfortunately, the poet was unable to benefit by the
good-will of his Eminence, who died very shortly
afterwards, — an event which Scarron deplores in this
wise in another petition addressed to the King : —

" I have been for four years past a victim to a hideous ill.

Which seeks to destroy me.
It makes me weep like a calf, very often like a couple,

Sometimes like four of them.
Close pressed by my misfortunes I sought to present

A petition to the Cardinal ;
So some lines I wrote by dint of scratching

My ear and my head.
That great statesman listened to my plea

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PAUL SCARRON

And thought it neat ;
But hereupon came death to carry him away,
And brought to me naught."

Thanks to the protection of Mile, de Hautefort, he
had been presented to the Queen, who deigned to
permit him to call himself her invalid by appointment,
a function which he fulfilled in the most conscientious
way possible. The Queen granted him a present of
five hundred crowns. By dint of petitions and re-
quests, importunities and protection, he succeeded in
having this gift changed into a sort of pension, paid as
regularly as it could be in view of the troubled times
and the disordered finances. Scarron, who had borne
the title of abbe gratuitously for nearly forty years,
would have been glad to justify it by the possession of
some benefice, a priory, a prebend, or something else ;
but the licentious life he had led and the buffoonery
which formed his stock in trade were scarcely compati-
ble with clerical functions, even if his infirmities had
not made it impossible for him to discharge these.
He asked for a benefice which would call for so little
work that, to do it, it would be enough to believe in
God. It was again Mile, de Hautefort, his good
angel, who gained for him the satisfaction of his con-

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THE GROTESQUES

stant desire. She induced Monsignor de Lavardin,
Bishop of Mans, where she had an estate, to offer a
benefice in his diocese to poor Scarron, whose un-
doubted paralysis allowed the most prudish women to
support and recommend him as warmly as possible.
Our poet, satisfied on this point, had yet another
ambition, which was never fulfilled, that of being
given apartments in the Louvre. The hope that this
would be done was long held out to him, but he had
to be satisfied with the hope.

It would be a mistake, after all, to allow these
complaints of wretchedness and distress to lead us to
believe that Scarron was really poverty-stricken. That
sort of poetical mendicancy was then fashionable and
in no way dishonourable. Authors sought to gain
protectors, to obtain gifts, pensions, or pecuniary as-
sistance by means of flattering sonnets, of prefatory
epistles, or of dedications. As the court was the
supreme arbiter, and as a word from a duke, a smile
from a marchioness sufficed to make a work fash-
ionable, it was natural that authors should endeavour
to win the good opinion of persons of high station
by all possible cajolery ; and every one knows that
in the way of flattery there can be none too gross,

324

PAUL SCARRON

especially for courtiers who are accustomed to con-
sider themselves as the paragon and acme of all per-
fections. Expressions which to-day strike us as so
abject did not degrade the persons who made use of
them, any more than the formulae which are still used
nowadays at the end of a letter. Then it must not
be forgotten that in those days nobles and titled
persons were considered as belonging to a superior
race, as visible deities, of whom it was no more
humiliating to ask for favours than to ask of God
himself, so great was the distance which separated
the protector from the protege. No doubt the dignity
of man seems to have gained by the pride which
writers nowadays exhibit. They no longer prefix
to their books epistles on bended knees, in which
the author sets above the Maecenas of antiquity an
ass of a nobleman, in the hope of being repaid with
a few crowns ; but, on the other hand, they no longer
frequent high society, and no longer live on an intimate
footing with princes and men of rank. Reduced to
their own resources, they are bound down to inces-
sant work and must all lack leisure, the tenth Muse,
and the most inspiring of all. If they do not sacrifice
their pride, they have to sacrifice their art ; the honour

325

THE GROTESQUES

of the individual is untouched, but the glory of the
poet declines.

Scarron, though he pretended that he was lodged in
Poverty House, really lived in a rather pretty home.
His bedchamber was hung with yellow damask, and
the furniture had cost six thousand crowns. He wore
a velvet dress, ate well, had several servants, and
kept up his establishment in fairly good style. The
pension he received from the Queen, that given him
by his father, the income from his benefice, and the
money he made from his books must have abun-
dantly met his expenses. His " marquisate of
Quinet " — that was the name he gave to the income
from his books ; his bookseller was called Quinet —
brought him in handsome sums, so he was not to be
pitied quite as much as he claimed ; if he suffered
all the torments of Job, he was at least never re-
duced to sitting on a dunghill and scraping himself
with a shard. His dunghill was a very comfortable
armchair, admirably upholstered, with arms and a
board so arranged that he could work when gout
did not torture him too much. He even had a
secretary, or a lackey who acted as such, if we
may believe these lines : —

PAUL SCARRON

" And the valet whom I employed to write,
Another demon who was never seen to laugli,
And whose indifferent and cold ways
Would have made even a monk swear right out,
Ceasing at last to be my servant,
Rid me of a glum lunatic."

He met frequently and on familiar terms the
Countess du Lude, Mme. de la Suze, Mme. de
Bassompierre, M. de Villequier, the Prince and Prin-
cess of Guemenee, Mme. de Blerancourt, the Duch-
ess de Rohan, Mme. de Maugiron, Mme. de
Bois-Dauphin, M. de Courcy, Major Aubry, Sarrazin,
la Menardiere, and many others, his neighbours,
who lived in the Place Royale or near it, and to
whom he refers in some compliment or kindly men-
tion in his farewell to the Marais, when he went
to take tripe baths, at the Charity Hospital in the
Faubourg Saint-Germain, in the hope of relieving
his sufferings. The tripe baths were no more effi-
cacious than the Bourbon waters which he had gone
to take, and which had not even succeeded, as he
comically says, in changing his worse into a simple
ill. If these trips did not contribute to the recovery
of his health, they at least served his fortunes. He
met numbers of fine acquaintances, and established

327

THE GROTESQUES

many connections with illustrious personages. The
two " Legends of Bourbon," which may be classed
among his most agreeable poems, gave him an oppor-
tunity of introducing all sorts of graceful remarks and
flattering lines to the great personages whom he had
met at the baths. It was there that he acquired a
protector in the person of Gaston de France, Duke
of Orleans, brother of Louis XIII, who deigned
to inquire after the health of the poor devil and
appeared to be interested in him. He bestirred him-
self to have Scarron senior recalled from exile ; but
whether he did not espouse his cause warmly enough,
or whether Richelieu's resentment was still unap-
peased, the recalcitrant councillor was not recalled,
and he died at Loches, in Touraine, without other
diversion than the companionship of his friend Des-
landes-Payen, a councillor of the High Court, Prior
of Charite-sur-Loire, and Abbe of Mont-Saint-Martin.
The Duke of Saint-Aignan in particular was so
tickled with a passage which referred to him in
the " Legends of Bourbon " that he expressed his
thanks to Scarron in a versified epistle of his own,
to which the latter did not fail to reply. But those
who welcomed him most warmly at Bourbon were

^28

PAUL SCARRON

a M. Fransaiche and his wife, who took him to
their hoiise, where he spent a month, gorged with
good cheer and delicacies ; for amid all the ravage
caused in our burlesque poet by disease, his appetite
had not been touched ; his stomach seemed to have
drawn to itself the life which gradually left the rest
of his body. He was as fond of good eating as
a devotee's cat, and left tid-bits to one side only to
get better. So he speaks with a gratitude which gives
you an appetite of the Maine capons and the partridge
pasties which the ladies d'Hautefort and d'Escars gave
him.

People of the highest rank often had dinner and
supper parties at his house. The wine was good,
the dishes choice, and the conversation of the brightest.
It is probable that his illustrious guests did not let him
bear the whole expense, that they sent him hampers of
game, and baskets of wine, and that Scarron's share was
only the table and the joints. Pretty faces even were
not absent from the poet's home, although he was not
yet married. He had taken into his house his father's
two sisters by his first marriage, Anne and Frances,
One of them had a nice figure, a charming voice,
and was clever. The Duke de Tremes, who fre-

329

THE GROTESQUES

quented the home, took a fancy to her and paid her
attentions which were received so favourably that a
child was born. This child later married a lady called
Anne de Thibourt, and became equerry to Mme. de
Maintenon. Scarron was far from posing as a rigorous
brother, and he said of his sisters that one was fond
of drink and the other of men. This succinct appre-
ciation appears to us to be justified. He also pre-
tended that in Twelve Gates Street there were twelve
light o' loves, counting the two Misses Scarron as one
only. That poor street of the Marais is no longer
gay, and virtue reigns in it between mouldy walls.

Although crippled in every limb, Scarron had a lively
imagination. The reading of the Spanish authors, whom
he studied assiduously (for he was very well acquainted
with that tongue), filled his head with romantic adven-
tures. A friend of his, Madaillan, resolved to play a
joke upon him. He wrote him letters signed with a
woman's name, and appointed a number of meetings
to which the poor devil had himself carried in a bath
chair, his only available mode of locomotion. Of
course he only appeared at the rendezvous, and he un-
derstood that he had been tricked. Previously, how-
ever, a poetic correspondence had been entered upon

330

PAUL SCARRON

between <the mysterious lady and the paralytic gallant.
He found it hard to forgive Madaillan for his joke,
spoke of him in terms of grossest insult, and long
bore him a grudge. Yet he had been duped by self-
love only, and he alone had been the practical joker
who had taken him in ; for how could he have
dared to believe for a moment that he had inspired a
woman with a passion, or even a caprice. It is true
that he reckoned upon the brightness of his wit and his
literary reputation, which was considerable, to make
her forget his bodily defects. Ill-favoured and deformed
poets are always ready to believe in that queenly kiss
which alighted on the lips of the sleeping Alain Char-
tier, although he was one of the ugliest of men. No
doubt, too, our poet was so dried up that he caught fire
easily. We beg to be allowed this poor conceit which
he would not have refused himself the pleasure of utter-
ing, in spite of the horror that, according to Cyrano de
Bergerac, he professed for anything with a point to it.

It is not to vanity but to the goodness of his heart
alone that the following action is to be attributed.
Having learned that a certain Celeste de Palaiseau,
whom he had loved before his illness, was in a condi-
tion bordering on indigence, he took her into his own

THE GROTESQUES

home and exerted himself to such good effect that he
obtained for her the priory of Argenteuil, which brought
in an income of two thousand livres. The poor woman
was born under an unlucky star ; for she was weak
enough and imprudent enough to resign her priory to a
lady who literally allowed her to die of want.

To wind up these biographical details, let us come
to the time when Scarron met Mile. d'Aubigne, who
later became his wife, and, later still, queen of France,
with the title of Madame de Maintenon. If ever there
was a life made up of adventures and ups and downs,
it was unquestionably that of Mile. d'Aubigne. It is
as strange as truth, and yet no one would dare to write
so improbable a novel. Mile. d'Aubigne was descended
from that famous d'Aubigne who made a name for him-
self under Henry III with the " Confessions of Sancy,"
and the "Satirical Divorce," — dashing and sparkling
works written in a style of remarkable firmness and
energy. We shall not take up time by telling the story
of Mile. d'Aubigne, which is well enough known and
which may be read in all sorts of books without our
taking the trouble to transcribe it. On her return from
America Madame d'Aubigne lodged with her daughter,
then only fourteen years old, opposite Scarron's house.

PAUL SCARRON

The ne^ neighbours gradually became acquainted, and
our burlesque poet, who, in spite of his coarse pleasant-
ries, was very kind-hearted, became interested in the
misfortunes of Madame d'Aubigne, who was in most
precarious circumstances. The girl struck him as being
very charming, and he offered to marry her. Though
he was impotent and twisted into the oddest of shapes,
his proposal was not rejected, the only objection offered
being that Mile. d'Aubigne was much too young. It
was agreed to delay the marriage for a couple of years;
at the end of that time it was celebrated. Mother and
daughter must have been brought very low to consent
to such a match. It may be that they asked for the
delay of two years in the hope that something better
would turn up ; but this was not the case, since Mile.
d'Aubigne became Madame Scarron. The follow-
ing letter was written by Scarron to Mile. d'Aubigne at
the beginning of their intercourse, and is rather inter-
esting : —

" I had always suspected that the little girl I saw six
months ago come into my rooms with a dress too short
for her and who began to en', I know not why, was as
clever as she seemed to be. The letter you wrote to
Mile, de Saint-Hermant is so bright that I am ill satis-

333

THE GROTESQUES

fied with my own cleverness, which did not make me
perceive all the merit of yours soon enough. To tell
the truth, I should have never supposed that the art of
writing clever letters was taught in the islands of
America or at the convent in Niort, and I cannot im-
agine why you should have been as careful to conceal
your talents as every one else is to display his. Now
that you are found out, you must not refuse to write to
me as well as to Mile. Saint-Hermant. I shall do my
best to write letters as clever as yours, and you shall
have the pleasure of seeing that I am far less talented
than you are."

In another letter occurs this passage: " I am not sure
that I should not have been wiser had I been on my
guard against you the very first time I saw you. As
things have turned out, I ought certainly to have been
so ; but prav, what likelihood was there that a young
maid would upset an old bachelor , and who could have
suspected that she could trouble me enough to make me
regret my inability to take my revenge ? A plague on
me for loving you ! How foolish I am to be so much
in love ! Every minute I feci like starting off for
Poitou, and, considering the bitter cold, is it not a piece
of madness ? By Jove, come back, — since I am mad

334

PAUL S C A R R O N

enough ta set about regretting an absent beauty. I
ought to have known myself better and to have remem-
bered that it is sufficient to be crippled from head to
foot, without suffering besides from that de\ili.sh sicic-
ness which is called impatience to see you again."

Is it not a strange sight and one affording food for
reflection, to see the girl who later shared, or almost
shared, the throne of France, enter into the humble
abode of a poet with a skirt too short for her, for she
had grown since it had been cut out and she had been
too poor to buy another ? And that ass Scarron, who
wonders why she was crying ! Why was she crying ?
Because her dress was not long enough. Is not that a
sound reason, a genuine woman's reason ?

Before he could marry, Scarron had to give up his
benefice, which he sold to a valet of Menage, a clever
fellow whom his master was helping along. He also
parted with a small estate which he had somewhere in
Maine, and for which M. de Nuble handsomely paid
him twenty-four thousand livres, the price of eighteen
thousand livres, which had been put upon it at first,
being below its real value. In spite of his marriage,
Scarron, thanks to that desire for change of scene
which is characteristic of invalids, had long entertained

335

THE GROTESQUES

the notion of going to Martinique, whence one of his
friends had returned completely cured of pains such as
he suffered from. In a letter to Sarrazin, he states
this intention in explicit terms : " I have therefore
invested a thousand crowns in the new company of
the Indies, which is about to found a colony three de-
grees from the equator on the banks of the Orillana
and the Orinoco. Farewell to friends ! farewell to
Paris ! farewell to you, tigresses disguised as angels !
Farewell to the Menages, to the Sarrazins, to the
Marignys. I renounce burlesque verse, comic poems,
and comedies, to go to a country where there are no
sham saints, no rascally devotees, no Inquisition, no
murderous winter, no crippling rheumatism, no worry
to reduce me to starvation."

His match with Mile. d'Aubigne was sure to revive
the project, which, however, was never carried out.
The course of events is truly wonderful. If through
a combination of circumstances Scarron had not been
prevented from carrying out his purpose. Mile.
d'Aubigne, now his wife, would have returned to
America and the close of Louis XIV's reign would
have been, no doubt, quite different. Mme. de Main-
tenon's influence was very great over the King, as

PAUL S C A R I< O N

he grew old and inclined to be morose, an inclina-
tion which she favoured, either to secure her influence
or because of a religious feeling on her part which there
is no reason to believe insincere. Although iMme. de
Maintenon was something of a coquette, going so far
as to be bled very frequently in order to preserve the
delicate whiteness which was one of her chief beauties,
the hard lessons which she had learned in adversity,
and the many ups and downs of her fortune, must
have filled her mind with a grave and sad feeling of
the vanity of sublunary things. The woman who had
slept between Ninon's sheets and under the roof of a
poor deformed poet must, when she slept in the alcoves
of Versailles, with their gold-embroidered hangings,
have dreamed strange dreams, and wondered at times
whether she was really herself. It is not surprising
that Mme. de Maintenon should have regretted, at the
height of her glory, the bright, gay, and unconven-
tional home of Scarron, and the days when she made
up for the lack of roast bv telling a story ; for Scarron
was not so difficult to move to laughter as Louis XIV,
of whom she said that she was getting tired at last of
trying to divert a man who could no longer be diverted.
In that royal home, which was growing more and more

337

THE GROTESQUES

sombre, entered then black-gowned men, confessors
prowled around, and the Edict of Nantes, the dragon-
nades of the Cevennes, the Chamillard ministry were
being slowly prepared and organised. On what did all
this depend ? On a few pistoles ; on a little more or a
little less rheumatism. Cromwell did not board the
vessel which was to carry him away to Jamaica for
want of a pair of boots. If the stern Puritan had pos-
sessed those boots, Charles I would have kept his head
on his shoulders. If Mme. Scarron had returned to
America, Louis XIV would probably have continued
to indulge in ballets, carousals, and love affairs ; the
deadly dulness of the later years of his reign would
not have brought about the prolonged debauch of the
Regency and the orgies of Louis XV, when the
nobility indulged in such excesses that the Revolution
became absolutely indispensable as a reaction and an
adjustment. It takes so little to sway and turn from
its course at its source a whole stream of events.

When the marriage settlements were drawn up, the
notary asked Scarron what he acknowledged to have
been the fortune brought by his future wife. " Two
great, very self-willed eyes, a very handsome figure, a
pair of beautiful hands, and a very great deal of talent,"

338

PAUL SCARRQN

he replied. " What dower do you settle on her ? "
added the notary. " ImmortaHty," continued the
poet ; " the names of kings' wives die with them, that
of Scarron's wife will live forever."

Madame Scarron introduced into her husband's home
order, seemliness, and if not quiet, decency at least,
and a more respectable playfulness. She transformed
the doleful home of the sick old bachelor, where vials
of medicine stood cheek by jowl with bottles of wine;
and if the company was as numerous as it was before,
it was at least more choice and more reserved.
Through her gentle influence Scarron, who was very
cynical and Rabelaisian in his freedom of speech, cured
himself of his filthy jokes and equivocal remarks. In
all he wrote after his marriage, one notes pleasantries in
better taste and a diminution of coarseness, and espe-
cially of obscenity. It must not be believed, however,
that our burlesque poet was completely reformed ; such
marked originality as his could not repress itself to
such an extent. He allowed himself a good deal of
license still, and carried out the programme which he
had laid out when he was married : " I shall never
behave improperly to my wife, but I shall often tell her
very improper things."

339

THE GROTESQUES

Well, that little, deformed, sick, ridiculous man
avoided the misfortune which the greatest men, the
brightest geniuses have not always managed to escape.
His wife, beautiful, young, witty, courted by the most
gallant, the most illustrious, and the wealthiest men of
the day, remained strictly faithful to him ; a fact which
no one has ever questioned save Giles Boileau, and
which was acknowledged by the most slanderous writers
of the day, among others by Sorbiere. While so many
young, loving, charming husbands are betrayed in favour
of pot-bellies or asses, Scarron, the carved mandragora,
escaped that which made Moliere's life unhappy. The
author of " Virgil Travestied " deserves to have it said
that he did not take undue advantage of his conjugal
rights and did not deceive himself in this respect.

Scarron was in rather easy circumstances at this
time. He had, with the protection of Fouquet, the
Director-General of Finances, organised a sort of
surety company for carriages which reached the city
gates, and which he then had driven to their destina-
tion in the city by trusty agents who became respon-
sible for the duties. This business brought him in
about six thousand livres a year. Besides his tales and
his comic poems, Scarron wrote for the stage and com-

340

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PAUL S C A R R U N

posed several plays which brought him in a good deal
of money„ " Jodelet, Master and Valet " was per-
formed in 1645. The subject is drawn from a Spanish
play by Don Francesco de Rojas, called " Don Juan
Alvaredo." In the same year "Jodelet the Duellist "
was produced at the Hotel de Bourgogne, under the
title of " The Three Dorotheas," and appeared in book
form under its present title only in 1651. "The
Whims of Captain Hector," drawn from the " Miles
Gloriosus " of Plautus, was performed in 1646, — for
Scarron was endowed with extraordinary facility. It
was remarkable for being written in octosyllabic verse
on one rime. The assonance chosen by the poet is
inerit. "The Ridiculous Heir, or the Interested Lady"
appeared in 1649. This play so greatly delighted
King Louis XIV that he had it performed, it is said,
three times in one day. We have read it, and confess
that a single performance would more than satisfy us.
The vile, odious character of Donna Helena, the in-
terested lady, the boastfulness and the bulls of Filipin
the valet, — whom his master disguises as Don Pedro
de Buffalos In order to test the interested lady, who
does not fail to think him delightful, believing him the
owner of all the mines of Peru, — all this spiced with

THE GROTESQUES

artless remarks by Carmagnole the lackey, does not
seem to us to deserve such enthusiasm. It may be, of
course, that the anecdote is apocryphal.

If ever a man found a fortunate and convenient sub-
ject, it is that of "Don Japhet of Armenia," one of
Scarron's finest plays. Don Japhet thus presents him-
self and states who he is : —

<' For me, I am Don Japhet, of Noah the grandson ;
Of Armenia is my name, by a previous order
Left before his death by that famous patriarch ;
For in Armenia it was that on the mount rested the ark."

Two of the doorkeepers were crushed to death at
the performance of " Don Japhet," so great was the
crowd. The first performance took place in 1663.
Condensed into three acts with intermissions of song
and dance, "Don Japhet" was played on May 10,
1 72 1, before King Louis XV on the stage of the Salle des
Machines in the Tuileries. The Turkish ambassador,
Mehemet EfFendi, was present. It was on the stage
of the Marais that " The Scholar of Salamanca " was
given in 1634. This is the first play in which Crispin
appears. The same subject was treated simultaneously
by Thomas Corneille and Boisrobert. The latter's
play was performed at the Hotel de Bourgogne that

342

PAUL SCAR RON

same year, and it is likely that he took advantage of
Scarron having read his own play to friends from the
manuscript, as was his habit, to work up as quickly as
he could a tragi-comedy based on the same plot. We
shall not dwell upon " The Corsair Prince," " The
False Appearances " and a few other comedies, of
which fragments alone have been published, but shall
give, to acquaint our readers with Scarron's style, a
summary of "Jodelet."

Don Juan Alvaredo arrives in Madrid by night, and
is so eager to conclude his marriage with Donna Isa-
bella, the daughter of Don Fernando, that before put-
ting up at any inn, or taking time to eat or drink, he
insists on going to the house of his future father-in-
law, in spite of the wise remonstrances of his lackey
Jodelet, who would dearly love to have a bite, and
thinks it is very absurd to wake up people and to go
hunting through a city for a house that you do not
know. Don Juan is madly in love with Isabella,
though he has seen her portrait only. He has sent her
his own, the work of a Flemish painter, believing that
it will produce the same effect on her. Jodelet does
not seem quite so sure as Don Juan on this point.
He has a very good reason for it, namely that, being

343

THE GROTESQUES

the incarnation of absent-mindedness, he has sent off,
instead of the medallion containing his master's por-
trait, his own ugly mug, which the Flemish painter, an
easy-going fellow, had been good enough to paint into
the bargain. On his confessing this, his lordship
Alvaredo enters into a great rage. " What will Isa-
bella have thought ? " cries the despairing lover. "She
will have said that you are not handsome," replies
Jodelet, with the most aggravating coolness. Finally
Don Juan cools down somewhat, and, while trying to
find the house of Don Fernando de Rojas, he relates
that on his returning from Flanders to Burgos he
found that his brother had been killed in a duel and
his sister Lucretia carried off, though he knows neither
by whom nor how. As they proceed in the darkness
Jodelet knocks up against a fellow whom he questions,
and who tells them that the house in front of which
they are is the residence of Don Fernando de Rojas.
While this conversation is going on, a man climbs
down from the balcony and nearly drives the travellers'
sombreros down over their eyes with his foot. He
calls for Stephen, and seeing that it is Jodelet who
replies, he flees, not before he has exchanged a few
futile passes in the darkness with Don Juan Alvaredo.

344

PAUL SCARRON

" Is it the custom in Madrid to make use of windows
as doors ? " asks Jodelet of his master, who, very
much upset and abashed, begins to have a poor opinion
of Isabella's virtue. In order to find out the actual
state of affairs, he proposes that Jodelet shall wear his
dress and play in Don Fernando's house the part of
his master, a plan which the mistake made in the send-
ing of the portraits renders the more feasible. Thanks
to this disguise, Don Juan Alvaredo learns that Don
Louis, the man whom he saw coming down from the
balcony, had seduced Lucretia and killed his brother.
Lucretia, by a romantic chance, happened to seek
refuge with Donna Isabella. Don Louis atones for
his wrongs and restores honour to her whom he had
seduced ; Don Juan Alvaredo marries Isabella, who has
fallen in love with him, although she took him for a
servant, but managed to recognise the master's soul
under the dress of the valet. As for Master Jodelet,
the number of blunders, of absurdities, of amazing
stupidities which he manages to commit, is beyond our
power to sum up. His part is unquestionably one of
the most naturally buffoon that exists. It was written
for a very talented actor, called Julien Geoffrin, whose
stage name was Jodelet and who played all the Jodelet

345

THE GROTESQUES

parts. This actor entered the troupe of the Hotel de
Bourgogne by order of the king. He it was who
played the part of Don Japhet of Armenia and who
contributed greatly to the success of Scarron's plays.

These plays, which Scarron dashed off in three or
four weeks at most, are all composed after the Spanish
model, without the least regard for the rules of Aris-
totle. Our burlesque poet adopts the precept of Lope
de Vega, which was to lock up the Precepts with six
keys when one wanted to write a comedy. The scene
is now in a street, now in a garden, now in a room or
on a balcony. Duels, unexpected encounters, dis-
guises, elopements, masks, dark lanterns, and rope-
ladders abound ; some ridiculous or stupid valet plays
the part of the clown. The style, which is precious
and affected in scenes of love or gallantry, is in general
familiar, easy, realistic, which is the distinct mark of
Scarron's manner. In most of his comedies, as was
then the fashion, couplets are introduced. In the
second act of " Jodelet " there is a parody of the
" Cid," written in stanzas, which begins thus : —
" Be clean, my teeth, for honour wills it."

But Scarron's masterpiece is unquestionably the
" Comic Romance," which is a perfect model of

PAUL SCARRQN

naturalness, of narration and originality. Nothing can
be more unlike "The Illustrious Bassa," " Clelia,"
"The Orondates," "The Great Cyrus" and other
contemporary trash. The only works which can be
compared with it are the Spanish Picaresque novels,
among which are included " Lazarillo de Tormes,"
" Gusman d'Alfarache," " El Diablo Cojuelo " and a
good many more.

The action of the " Comic Romance" occurs in
the neighbourhood of Mans, which Scarron had visited
and which he describes with the accuracy and skill
of a man who paints from nature. The characters are
no less cleverly drawn than the places. We seem to
witness the misadventures which befall Ragotin, so
accurate is the detail, so true the gesture, so clearly is
the scene indicated. The characters of La Rancune,
the comedian, of Ragotin, the lawyer, have become
typical ; le Destin, Mademoiselle de I'Estoile, and
Mademoiselle Lacaverne live in all minds. Even the
stout Bouvillon has the stamp of reality so firmly
impressed that we seem to have known her. Besides,
the prose is excellent, free, and rapid, irresistible in its
gaiety, lending itself admirably to the familiar style,
and, although more inclined to be comic, not lacking a

347

THE GROTESQUES

certain tender grace and poetic feeling in the amorous
and romantic passages. Mademoiselle de I'Estoile is a
charming figure, a delightful incarnation of poesy.
Which of us, in imagination at least, has not followed
as did le Destin along the rutty roads of Mans, some
Mademoiselle de I'Estoile upon the play-actors' mud-
bespattered cart ? Is it not the old story of youth and
its illusions?

The first part of "The Comic Romance" is dedi-
cated to Cardinal de Retz, coadjutor-archbishop of
Paris, who was a friend of Scarron and who visited
him frequently; the second to the wife of the Director-
General of Finances, with whom Madame Scarron
was on a footing of friendship, as may be seen from
a passage in a letter of Scarron to Marshal d'Albret :
" Madame Scarron went to Saint-Mande to visit Madame
d'Emmeri, and I find that she is so smitten with her
charms that I fear there may be some impure motive ;
but as she never goes there save when taken by friends,
not having a carriage of her own, she cannot pay her
court as often as she would wish." The success of
" The Comic Romance " was so great that La Fon-
taine did not disdain to write a comedy on the adven-
tures of La Rancune. As a general rule, in this play
_-

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PAUL SCARRON

he has merely versified Scarron's prose. "The Comic
Romance " contains also many very pleasant tales
imitated or translated from the Spanish. Besides
these, Scarron has written some others drawn from
the collection of Donna Maria de Layas, called
" Novelas Ejemplares." "The Punishment of Ava-
rice," as one might say, is an interlinear translation
of " El Castigo de la Miseria." And this was not — far
from it — the only time that our burlesque poet bor-
rowed from Spanish literature.

A single volume would not suffice to name all the
plays and miscellaneous verse of Scarron, — sonnets,
epithalamia, requests. New Year addresses, epistles,
rondeaus, burlesque odes, drinking songs. Unable to
walk and not having much other distraction, he wrote
almost incessantly. When it is remembered that he
possessed great facility, it will be easily understood
that his collected works are very considerable. The
two " Legends of Bourbon," the " Farewell to the
Marais," "The Fair of Saint-Germain," " Hero and
Leander," the " Petitions to the Queen," the " Epis-
tles to the Countess of Fieschi," the " Letter to His
Friend Sarrazin," in trisyllabic verse, his " Sonnet on
Paris," and two or three others in which the poetic.

349

THE GROTESQUES

emphasis is often wittily quizzed, are most read and
most frequently quoted.

Scarron's life was, in some sort, nothing more than
a truce between life and death, which might be broken
any day. Every year, in spite of the help of medical
art and the care taken of him by Quenault and by
his wife, his sufferings increased in such fashion as
to give him plainly to understand that his end was
approaching. His great trouble was that he would
leave penniless a young, beautiful, and honest wife,
whom he tenderly loved. The Court was then pre-
paring to travel to Guyenne for the marriage of Louis
XIV, and the departure of his friends saddened him
still more. One day he was seized with such a
violent fit of hiccoughs that it was believed that he
was dying. In the very short moments of respite
between the convulsions, he said, "If I ever recover
from this, I shall write a fine satire against hiccoughs."
He was unable to fulfil his promise, for he soon fell ill
again, and seeing around his bed his household bathed
in tears, " My friends," he said, " you will never weep
as much for me as I have made you laugh."

He died in 1660, being then fifty, some say in the
month of June, others in the month of October. A

350

PAUL SCARRON

passage in Loiet's "Historical Aluse," of October i(
of that year, seems to strengthen the latter belief:

" Scarron, that playful wit
Who has at times praised me,
Scarron, the creator of burlesque.
And who in that jargon so grotesque
Surpassed for more than sixteen years
The most entertaining writers,
Has seen himself cut down by the scythe
That cuts all down.
He who lived on verse alone
Now is eaten by worms.
He sprang from a good family,
He leaves neither son nor daughter.
But does leave an amiable wife
Most worthy of affection.
For she is young, charming, and fair,
And most witty in every way."

Scarron was buried in Saint-Gervais, where, unless
we are mistaken, his tomb is still to be seen. Madame
Scarron was left alone, but not unprotected. The
pension which her husband had received, and which
amounted to five hundred crowns, was continued in
her favour to the amount of two thousand livres. On
leaving the convent to which she had withdrawn to
spend the days of her widowhood, she became ac-
quainted with Madame de Theanges, who introduced

THE GROTESQUES

her to Mme. de Montespan. That was the beginning
of her fortune ; but it is history and does not concern
us, a mere literary biographer, a humble critic seek-
ing for pearls in the dunghill of second-rate writers.
When Madame Scarron became the Marchioness of
Maintenon a curious thing happened : Scarron, who
had so greatly interested the court and the town was
no more thought of than if he had never lived ; the
flattery of the courtiers completely suppressed the
comic poet. No one ventured to make the most dis-
tant allusion to "Typhon" or to "The i^neid Trav-
estied." Deep silence fell upon the tomb of the poor
impotent, and had Madame de Maintenon not been
blessed w'ch a good memory, she might very well have
forgotten that Mademoiselle d'Aubigne had married
poor Scarron. The literary form which he had made
popular disappeared with him. In vain did d'Assoucy,
hoping to gather in the inheritance of the master,
proclaim himself the Emperor of burlesque. Boileau
proved stronger, and Scarron had no literary any more
than he had natural descendants. It was only when
the great king was well and duly buried in Saint-Denis
that people dared to remember the works of the poor
poet and to republish them.

352

The Dancing Girl.

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Contents

Introduction Page 3

Irun ....
Vergara — Burgos
Burgos ....
Valladolid
Madrid ....
The Escorial .
Toledo
Granada .
Malaga
Cordova

Seville ....
Cadiz — Gibraltar

27
47
66
84
144

157
198

277

323
356

378

Travels in Spain

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Introduction

SPAIN has always attracted Frenchmen :
whether they warred with it or were friendly
to it, at least they have never been indiffer-
ent to it. The noble French epic, " The
Song of Roland," is full of Saracenic Spain ; the
sixteenth century borrowed the Spanish version of
" Amadis of Gaul" which, in its new dress, became
the breviary of the Court of the Valois ; Henry IV
fought and defeated the Spaniard, but wore his costume
and spoke his language ; Richelieu checkmated Spain
at every point, but Corneille sang the praises of the
Castilian pundonor in his immortal " Cid ; " Conde
destroved the military prestige of the dons at Rocroy,
but Scarron turned to the writers of the Peninsula for
inspiration, and Moliere placed the Sevillian Don Juan
upon the French stage. In the eighteenth century
Lesage's purely French masterpiece, " Gil Bias,"
masqueraded under Spanish names and Spanish local

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

colour, and it was under a Spanish veil that Beaumar-
chais presented his subversive comedy " The Marriage
of Figaro," on the eve of the Revolution.

When the nineteenth century dawned and Roman-
ticism arose, that school felt the Spanish attraction and
yielded to it more ardently than had ever before been
the case. Chateaubriand, the founder of Romanticism,
wrote a picturesque and sentimental tale, "The Last
of the Abencerrages," in which he brilliantly described
the Alhambra and the glories of Granada, without
entering into actual detail, and recalled the varied
history of the land ruled in turn by Moor and by
Christian. Alfred de Vigny, too, owned the spell :
his " Dolorida " and " The Horn " seemed to the
enthusiastic youth of his day faithful pictures of the
past and the present in Old Spain. Alfred de Musset,
whose reputation balanced for a time that of the
sov'ran poet, made his dehut with " Tales of Spain
and Italy," written in the richly coloured verse that
alone found favour in the eyes of the men of his
generation. Merimee produced his " Drama of Clara
Gazul," a collection of plays inspired by the free
drama of Lope de Vega and Calderon de la Barca,
which he palmed off as Spanish originals, and which

I N T R O D U C r I O N

he followed with tales, the scene of which was laid in
the Peninsula, and later with " Letters from Spain,"
written while travelling through the country. Victor
Hugo, the chief of the school, had already in his
" Odes and Ballads " turned to the land of fiery pas-
sions and fierce hatreds for striking subjects. In his
celebrated " Preface " to his drama " Cromwell," ad-
miration for Spanish letters and modes of thought
showed plainly enough. It was with a Spanish subject
that he won his first triumph on the stage and over-
threw for a time the Classical repertory, " Hernani "
was a name to conjure by in those days, and even
now, seventy years later, the echoes of the conflict it
aroused have not wholly died away. It was with a
Spanish subject again that in " Ruy Bias " Victor
Hugo scored another success, while it is interesting to
note that these are the only two plays of his that have
survived the wreck of the Romanticist drama.

The Romanticist movement had been impelled
towards exoticism by Chateaubriand, and the various
writers of genius or talent who hastened to follow his
lead sought that exoticism either in bygone times —
especially in the epoch of the Renaissance and the
Middle Ages — or in absolutely foreign countries.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Italy never seemed quite foreign enough to the enthu-
siasts of that excitable and emotional period in litera-
ture. It was too closely linked with classical memories
to furnish — save in the bloody annals of its mediaeval
days — subjects startling enough to satisfy the exi-
gencies of the Romanticists. Spain, the legendary Spain
of the poet and the romancer, of Lope de Vega and
Calderon, of Columbus and Cervantes, had, on the
contrary, taken a strong hold on the imaginations of
the writers of the new school. It combined all the
elements of picturesqueness and strangeness, of violent
passions and singular manners, which they craved for.
It shared with Greece — the Greece of the War of
Independence — and with Turkey the characteristics
of Orientalism. It was, like these lands, wholly dif-
ferent from the France of the Restoration and the
bourgeois king Louis-Philippe. Its scenery must of
necessity be grander, wilder, more diversified, more
striking than that of fair France, fair and gentle, but as
yet scarcely known to its inhabitants, and unappre-
ciated until George Sand drew attention to its many
charms and rustic beauties. Spanish towns and cities
must perforce be quainter, more mediaeval, more bar-
baric in outline, in plan, in detail, in character, in

I NTRQD UCTI ON

architecture than old Paris itself, swamped in the
newer city that had grown up around it. The min-
gling of Gothic and Moorish which they presented
must of necessity be more artistic than the mingling
of Gothic and Classical met with in the chief cities
of the native land. The inhabitants also, from the
grandee who stood with covered head in the presence
of his sovereign to the poor but proud hidalgo draped
in his worn and ragged mantle, must be cast in another
mould than the society nobleman and the despised
eplcier who appeared to the Romanticist writer to con-
stitute the totality of French society. The accursed
effects of civilisation — branded by the flaming elo-
quence of Rousseau in the previous century — must be
almost unfelt in the Iberian land, where men might
love and hate, women be passionate and jealous,
lovers slay and fathers kill, without the stupid law
intervening to trouble the free course of natural feeling
and desire.

Spain was the land of love intrigues, of grated win-
dows and barred balconies, of serenades and duels, of
knife-thrusts and secret poisonings, of all things, in a
word, that made life worth living in Romanticist litera-
ture. Its men were still clad in the picturesque

4, a. 4; 4; 4: ^ 4; 4* 4; 4; 4; 4*4. 4. 4; 4; 4; 4; 4. 4; 4* 4; 4; 4.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

costumes with which Beaumarchais had familiarised
the French ; its women still wore the brilliant dress
in which Fanny Elssler won terpsichorean triumphs
on the stage in the bolero, the fandango, and the
cachucha. The sombrero and the mantilla, the fan
and the navaja, the castanets and the tambourine
were inseparable adjuncts of the Castilian, the Andalu-
sian, and the Valencian — at least such was the firm
belief of the whole of the long-haired Romanticist
tribe. Byron's " Childe Harold" and "Don Juan"
had wrought up French imaginations and inflamed
French hearts. Victor Hugo, who did remember
something of the country which he had seen when a
boy, had added fuel to the fire with his splendid tales
of Spain couched in burning verse.

And Gautier was all aglow with passionate love of
that land, of its manners, its customs, its architecture,
its Moorish remains, its Gothic piles, its majos and
manolas. The Spain he knew was the Spain he
dreamed of j the land he had learned to love and long
for m the verse of his Byron and of his poetic chief, —
a world of passion, a land of splendour, a country of
contrasts that appealed to his every feeling as a painter,
to his every instinct as a poet, to his every aspiration as

INTROD UCTIQN

a youth intoxicated with the liquor of exoticism, with
the heady wine of local colour. He had scarcely
travelled when, in 1840, he crossed the Bidassoa and
left the Pyrenees behinrl him. He had seen Belgium
only, and the quaintness of the architecture of that land
had but whetted his appetite for more strangeness and
unexpectedness. Then, too, in the Low Countries he
had come upon innumerable traces and reminiscences
of the Spanish domination, and he was the more keen
to behold with his own eyes the land of Alva and Philip
the Second and of Charles the Fifth.

It was under those influences and in that state of
mind that he began, continued, and ended his travels in
Spain. He sought the picturesque, the barbaric, the
curious, the eccentric, and it would indeed have been
strange had he not found it. What he went to look
for, and what he perceived was the external appearance
of the land and the people. He was not concerned
with the deeper questions that might well engage the
attention of an observer : he heeded neither the political
troubles nor the mental unrest ; he paid no attention to
the conflict of dynasties nor to the aspirations towards
freedom of a people long held in bondage by the Bour-
bon sovereigns ; to the deep disturbance caused by sue-

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

cessive revolutions treading on the heels of repeated
aggression and invasion by his own countrymen. The
history of the century — yet young — is nowhere dis-
cussed by him, although it was in Spain that Napoleon's
power had been shattered, that Wellington had crushed
the French armies, that the country had risen as one
man to repel the foreign foe, and had waged a war so
bitter, so relentless, so hideously cruel that humanity
might well have been staggered by it. At the very
moment when he was revelling in the fierce emotions
aroused in him by the brutalising spectacle of the bull-
fight, when he was joying in the delicate, fairy-like
grace of the Alhambra, with its memories of the Moor,
of Chateaubriand and Washington Irving, when he was
delighting in the glories of Burgos and Seville, the
country was in the last throes of the Carlist war;
Espartero was the popular hero, and the Queen-Regent,
Christina, was abdicating the power she had so ruth-
lessly and so thoroughly misused, and fleeing to France.
Here and there in his book, it is true, one comes upon
passing allusions to the events that shook Spain to its
foundations, but the only reflections they suggest to him
are that vandalism is inseparable from revolutions, and
that picturesqueness has lost bv the expulsion of the

INTRODUCTION

monks in robe and cowl from the deserted monasteries
he traverses.

With this reservation, which is a regret, the " Travels
in Spain " form most delightful reading. It is impos-
sible, surely, to render with greater force, vividness, and
accuracy the external aspect of the land and its inhabi-
tants ; to convey more admirably in words the sense of
form, the beauty of outline, the picturesqueness of detail
and of costume, the splendour and variety of colour.
The style of Gautier is fairly enchanting in these
respects, and the reader — if he learns little or nothing
of the character and modes of thought of the Spaniards,
if he is not helped to an understanding of the forces at
work in the country which Roman and Moor con-
quered and lost — enjoys at least an unparalleled word-
painting of one of the most picturesque of lands, of the
most interesting of countries.

The " Travels in Spain " first appeared in the shape
of letters to the Paris journal La Presse^ between May
27 and September 3, 1840, under the title Lettres d'un
Feuilletoniste — Sur les Chem'im. These comprised the
first nine chapters. The tenth and eleventh appeared
in the Revue de Parh^ on January 17 and 31 and
October 17, 1841, and the remaining ones in the Revue

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

cles Deux Mondes^ between April 15, 1842, and January
I, 1843. They were collected and published in book
form, in two volumes, with some additions, in 1843,
under the title Tra los Monies^ and dedicated to Eugene
Piot, who had been his travelling companion. In 1845
a new edition appeared, in which the title was changed
to Voyage en Espagne^ and in 1 849 the original name
of the work, Tra los Monies^ was added as a sub-title.

Travels in Spain

I R U N

A FEW weeks since, in April, 1840, I had
carelessly said, " I should rather like to
go to Spain." A few days later my
friends had omitted the prudent reserva-
tion which accompanied the expression of my wish,
and repeated to any one that came along that I was
going on a trip to Spain. So on the 5th of Mav I
proceeded to rid my country of my importunate person,
and climbed into the Bordeaux stage-coach, which took
me to that city and Bayonne, where we took the
Madrid coach, in which we reached the Bidassoa River,
On the other side of the Bidassoa shows Irun, the
first Spanish village. Half the bridge belongs to
France, half to Spain. Close to the bridge is the
famous Isle of Pheasants, where was celebrated by
proxy the marriage of Louis XIV.

A few more revolutions of our wheels, and I shall
perhaps lose one of my illusions and see disappear the

t'Mli'atlti.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Spain of my dreams, the Spain of the Romancero^ of
Victor Hugo's ballads, of Merimee's tales and Alfred
de Musset's stories. As I cross the dividing line, I
remember what dear, witty Henri Heine said to me
at Liszt's concert, in that German accent of his, full
of humour and slyness : " How will you manage to
speak of Spain after you have been there ? "

One half of the Bidassoa bridge belongs to France,
the other half to Spain ; you can plant one foot on
either kingdom, which is very grand. At the farther
end of the bridge you plunge at once into Spanish life
and local colour, Irun has no resemblance whatever
to a French village. The roofs of the houses project
in fan shape ; the tiles, alternately convex and con-
cave, form a sort of crenelation of strange and Moor-
ish aspect; the jutting balconies are of old blacksmith's
work of amazing beauty for a lonely village, and
convey the idea of great wealth now vanished. The
women spend their lives on these balconies, shaded
by an awning in striped colours, and turn them into
so many aerial chambers stuck on the face of the
building. The two ends are unprotected, and give
passage to the cooling breeze and to burning glances.
Do not, however, look there for the dun, warm tints.

I RUN

the brown-meerschaum shades which a painter might
hope for, — everything is whitewashed after the Arab
fashion ; but the contrast of the chalky tone with the
dark, brown colour of the beams, the roofs, and the
balconies nevertheless produces a pleasant effect.

We parted with horses at Irun. To the coach
were harnessed ten mules, clipped half way up the
Dody, so that they were half hide, half hair, like those
mediaeval costumes which look like two halves of
different garments that have been sewed together.
These curiously clipped mules have a strange look,
and appear dreadfully thin, for the denudation enables
one to study their anatomy thoroughly — bones, mus-
cles, and the smallest of the veins included. With
their hairless tails and their pointed ears, they look
like huge rats. Besides the ten mules, our numbers
were increased by a -zagal and two escopeteros^ adorned
with bell-mouthed muskets {trabucos). A zagal is
a sort of runner or sub-mayoral, who puts the shoe on
the wheels on perilous hills, looks after the harness
and the springs, hurries up the relays, and plays the
part of La Fontaine's fly, but much more efficaciously.
He wears a charming costume — a pointed hat, adorned
with velvet bands and silk tufts, and a brown or

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

snuff-coloured jacket with cuffs and collar of different
colours, usually blue, white, and red, with a great
arabesque flowering in the middle of his back, breeches
studded with filigree buttons, a pair of alpargatas^
which are sandals fastened with cords. Add a red
sash and a scarf with many coloured stripes, and you
have a thoroughly correct get-up. The escopeteros
are guardians {rniqueletes)^ destined to escort the carriage
and to frighten away rat eras (the name given to thieves
on a small scale), who would not resist the temptation
of spoiling a single traveller, but whom the terrifying
sight of a trabuco suffices to stand off, and who pass
by saluting you with the regulation, Vaya V. con Dlos^
" Go, and God be with you." The dress of the
escopeteros is very similar to that of the zagal, but
less coquettish and less rich. They sit on top at the
back of the carriage and thus overlook the whole
country. In describing our caravan we forgot to
mention a little postilion, who rides on a horse, keeps
ahead of the train, and starts the whole line.

A strange, inexplicable, harsh, terrifying, and laughter-
provoking noise had been filling my ear for some time.
I fancied it must be, at the very least, some princess
being murdered by a ferocious necromancer. It was

IRUN

nothing more than an ox-cart ascending the street
of Irun ; its wheels shrieicing hideously for lack of
grease, the driver preferring, no doubt, to put the said
grease into his soup. The cart was in every respect
exceedingly primitive. The wheels were solid blocks
and turned with the axle, as in the little carts made
by children from the shell of a pumpkin. The noise
is heard over a mile away, and is not considered
unpleasant by the natives. It provides them with
a musical instrument which plays automatically as
long as the wheel lasts. A peasant here would not
have a cart that did not shriek. This particular one
must have been constructed at the time of the flood.
As the hill is steep I walked as far as the town gate,
and turning around I cast a farewell glance on France.
The prospect was truly magnificent. The chain of
the Pyrenees sank in harmonious undulations towards
the blue surface of the sea, cut here and there by
silvery bars ; and, thanks to the extreme clearness
of the atmosphere, I could perceive very far away
a faint, pale, salmon-coloured line which projected into
the vast azure, and formed a great bight on the edge
of the coast. Bayonne and its outpost, Biarritz,
formed the extremity of this point, and the Gulf of

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Gascony stood out as plainly as on a map. From now
on, we shall not again approach the sea until we are
in Andalusia. Farewell, good old Ocean !

The carriage galloped at full speed up and down
extremely steep hills, — a performance which can be
carried out only thanks to the marvellous skill of the
drivers and the extraordinary surefootedness of the
mules. In spite of our speed, there fell in our laps
from time to time a laurel branch, a little bouquet of
wild flowers, a string of mountain strawberries like
rosy pearls threaded on a blade of grass. These bou-
quets were thrown by the little beggar boys and girls,
who followed the coach, running barefooted over the
sharp stones. This fashion of asking for alms by first
making a gift one's self has something noble and poetic
about it.

The landscape was delightful, somewhat Swiss in
appearance, perhaps, but of very varied aspect. Moun-
tainous masses, in the intervals of which one caught
sight of still higher ridges, rose up on either side of the
way. Their slopes, diversified with various crops,
wooded with green oaks, set off admirably the distant
vaporous summits. Red-roofed villages blossomed at
the foot of the mountains amid clumps of trees, and

:!: rl:^:!: 4: 4; 4: 4: 4: 4: 4, 4.4; :i:4;4; 4:4; Ju 4:4:4: 4.4;

IRUN

eyery minute I expected to see Ketle or Gretle issue
from these new chalets. Happily, Spain does not carry
comic opera quite so far.

Torrents as capricious as women come and go, form
little cascades, part, meet again, thread the rocks and
the pebbles in the most diverting fashion, and afford a
pretext for an endless number of the most pictur-
esque bridges. These bridges have a peculiar appear-
ance : the arches are cut out almost up to the railing,
so that the road on which the coach drives seems not
to be more than six inches thick. A sort of triangu-
lar pier, performing the office of a bastion, is usually
found in the centre. The profession of Spanish
bridge is not a very fatiguing one. There can scarcely
be a more perfect sinecure; you can walk under Span-
ish bridges during nine months in the year. They stay
in their places with imperturbable indifference and a
patience worthy of a better fate, awaiting a river, a
thread of water, or even a little dampness ; for they
are well aware that their arches are mere arcades,
and their name utter flattery. The torrents of which
I spoke just now have at most a depth of four or five
inches of water, but they suffice to make a good deal
of noise and to impart life to the solitudes which they

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

traverse. From time to time they drive some mill-
wheel, or feed some works by means of a dam, built in
just the place for a landscape painter.

The houses scattered in small groups through the
land are of a strange colour, — neither black, nor white,
nor yellow, but the colour of roast turkey. This defi-
nition, however trivial and culinary it may sound, is
none the less absolutely correct. Clumps of trees and
patches of green oaks bring out admirably the gray
lines and the vaporous, sombre tints of the mountains.
We dwell purposely on these trees because nothing is
rarer in Spain, and henceforth we shall have but scant
opportunity to describe them.

We changed mules at Oyarzun, and at nightfall
reached the village of Astigarraga, where we were to
sleep. We had not yet had any experience of the
Spanish inn ; and the picaresque and lively descrip-
tions in Don Quixote and Lazarillo de Tormes coming
back to our memory, our whole body itched at the
mere thought of them. We expected omelets adorned
with hair as long at that of the Merovingian kings,
mixed with feathers and claws ; pieces of stale bacon
with all the bristles left on, thus equally suitable to
make soup out of or to black pots with ; wine in goat-

IRUN

skins like' those which the good knight of La Mancha
slashed so furiously — and we even expected nothing
at all, which is much worse.

Profiting by the little daylight which remained, we
went to visit the church, which in truth looked more
like a fortress than a temple. The small windows cut
like loopholes, the thick walls, the solid buttresses,
imparted to it a robust, square look more warlike than
meditative. Spanish churches often have that appear-
ance. Around it ran a sort of open cloister, in which
was suspended a very large bell, which was rung by
moving the striker with a rope instead of swinging the
enormous metal capsule.

When we were shown to our rooms we were
dazzled with the whiteness of the bed and window-
curtains, the Dutch cleanliness of the floor, and the
perfect neatness of every detail. Tall, handsome,
well-made girls, with their splendid tresses flowing
down their backs, very well-dressed and in no wise
resembling the promised sluts, came and went with an
activity that augured well for the supper, which was
not long in coming. It was excellent and very well
served. At the risk of being tedious, we shall describe
it; for the difference between one people and another

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

lies precisely in these small details, which travellers
neglect in favour of grave poetical or political views,
which can very well be written without one's going
to the country itself.

A rich soup was first served, dilJering from ours in
having a reddish colour due to saffron which is dusted
on it to give it a tone. There surely is local colour —
red soup. The bread is very white and close, with
a slightly golden crust ; it is salted sufficiently to be
quite noticeable to a Parisian palate. The forks have
the end of the handle turned back, the prongs flat and
cut like the teeth of a comb. The spoons also have
a spatula look which our silver-ware has not. The
cloth is a sort of coarse damask. As for the wine, we
must confess that it was of the richest possible episco-
pal violet and thick enough to be cut with a knife,
while the carafes in which it was contained did not
make it at all transparent.

After the soup, was served the puchero^ an eminently
Spanish dish, or rather, the sole Spanish dish, for it is
eaten every day from Irun to Cadiz and from Cadiz
to Irun. A proper puchero is composed of a quarter
of beef, a piece of mutton, a chicken, a {^vi ends of
a sausage called chor'i'zo^ stuffed full of pepper, pimento,

IRUN

and other _^spices, of slices of bacon and ham, and on top
of all, a hot tomato and saffron sauce ; so far the
animal portion. The vegetable portion, called verclura^
varies according to the season, but cabbage and gar-
ban%o always form the basis of it. The garbanzo is
scarcely known in Paris, and we cannot define it better
than by saying that it is a pea that has striven to
become a bean and has succeeded too well. All this
stuff is served on different dishes, but the various
ingredients are mixed on one's plate in a way to pro-
duce a very complicated and tasty mayonnaise. This
mixture will doubtless appear somewhat barbarous to
gourmets, nevertheless it has a charm of its own and
is bound to please eclectics and pantheists. After-
wards came chickens dressed with oil, — for butter
is unknown in Spain, — fried fish, either trout or
stock-fish, roast lamb, asparagus, salad, and if de-
sired, macaroons, broiled almonds of exquisite taste,
goat's -milk cheese, queso de Burgos^ which is very
famous and sometimes deserves to be. To wind
up, a tray is brought in with A4alaga wine, sherry,
brandy, aguardiente (which resembles our French
anisette), and a small cup i^fuego) filled with liv^
coals to light your cigarette. This meal, with a

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

few unimportant changes, is invariably reproduced in
every part of Spain.

We left Astigarraga at midnight, and passed through
Ernani, the name of which calls up the most romantic
remembrances, without catching sight of anything but
huddled hovels and broken-down buildings vaguely
perceived through the darkness. We traversed, with-
out stopping, Tolosa, where we noticed houses adorned
with frescoes and huge coats of arms carved in stone.
It was market day, and the market place was full of
asses, mules picturesquely harnessed, and peasants with
strange and fierce faces. By dint of climbing and
descending, crossing torrents upon dry stone bridges,
we at last reached Vergara, where we were to dine.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

VERGARA — BURGOS

AT Vergara, I saw my first Spanish priest. His
appearance struck me as rather grotesque, al-
though, thank Heaven ! I do not entertain Voltaire's
ideas with regard to the clergy ; but the caricature of
Beaumarchais' Basile involuntarily recurred to me.
Imagine a black cassock with a cloak of similar colour,
and over all a vast, prodigious, phenomenal, hyperboli-
cal, titanic hat, of which no epithet, however extrava-
gant and excessive it may be, can give even the faintest
approximate idea. The hat is at least three feet long,
the brim is curved inwards, and makes in front and
behind the head a sort of horizontal roof. It is difficult
to invent a more absurd and fantastic shape. It did not
on the whole prevent the worthy priest from looking
very respectable, and walking about with the air of a
man whose conscience is perfectly easy as regards the
shape of his headgear. In place of bands he wore a
small white and blue collar, alzacuello^ like the Belgian
priests.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Beyond Mondragon, which is, as they say in Spain,
the last pueblo of the province of Guipuscoa, we en-
tered the province of Alava, and were soon at the foot
of the Salinas mountain. Switchback railways are
nothing in comparison with it, and at first the idea that
the coach is going to cross it strikes one as being as
ridiculous as walking on the ceiling head down, as
flies do. The miracle was performed with the help of
six oxen, which were harnessed ahead of the ten mules.
Never in my life have I heard such an uproar. The
mayoral, the zagal, the escopeteros, the postilion, and
the oxen-drivers vied with each other in shouts, in-
vectives, whip-lashings, and blows of the goad ; they
pushed at the spokes of the wheels ; they steadied the
coach from behind, dragged the mules by the bridle,
the oxen by the horns, with incredible ardour and fury.
The coach, at the tail end of that long line of animals
and men, presented the most curious appearance.
There must have been fully fifty yards between the
leaders and the wheelers of the team. Let us not
forget, by the way, the church steeple of Salinas,
which has a pleasant Saracenic aspect.

Looking back from the top of the mountain, the
various elevations of the chain of the Pyrenees arc

V ERG A R A— BURGOS

seen stretched out in infinite perspective. They look
like great light velvet draperies cast here and there and
rumpled into quaint folds by a Titan's caprice. At
Royave, a little farther on, I noticed an exquisite effect
of light. A snowy summit (^sierra nevada)^ which
the nearer crests of the mountains had until then con-
cealed from us, suddenly appeared, standing out against
a sky of so deep a lapis-lazuli blue that it was almost
black. Soon on every side of the plateau which we
were traversing, other mountains raised their snow-
covered, cloud-capped heads. The snow was not
compact, but divided into thin threads like the ribbing
of silver gauze, its whiteness increased by contrast
with the azure or lilac tints of the rock faces. The
cold was rather sharp, and grew more intense as we
advanced. The wind had not got very warm while
caressing the pale cheeks of those handsome, chilly
virgins, and it reached us as icy as if it had come
in a straight line from the arctic or antarctic poles.
The sun was setting when we entered Vitoria.
After traversing all sorts of streets, the architecture of
which was mediocre and in poor taste, the carriage
stopped at the Parador Jlejo. Crossing a fairly hand-
some square surrounded by arcades, we went straight

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

to the church. Darkness already filled the nave and
thickened mysteriously and threateningly in obscure
corners, in which could be dimly made out fantastic
shapes. A few small lamps twinkled darkly yellow
and smoky, like stars through a fog. It was in this
Vitoria church that I first met with those terrifying
carvings in coloured wood which the Spanish indulge
in so excessively.

After a supper [cena) which made us regret the one
we had enjoyed at Astigarraga, we bethought ourselves
of going to the theatre. We had been lured by a
poster announcing an extraordinary performance by
the French Hercules, followed by a baile nac'ional^
which appeared to us big with cachucas, boleros, fan-
dangos, and other wild dances.

Play-houses in Spain, have, as a rule, no facade, and
are distinguished from other buildings merely by two
or three smoky lamps hung at the door. We took
two orchestra stalls called glass seats (asientos de lunetd^^
and we plunged bravely into a passage the flooring of
which was neither boarded nor tiled, but the bare
ground. The interior of the theatre is more comfort-
able than the approach would indicate ; the boxes are
very well arranged, and though the decoration is simple,

VERGARA— BURGOS

it is fresh and clean. The aslentos de luneta are
armchairs arranged in rows and numbered. There is
no ticket-taker at the door to take your tickets, but a
small boy collects them before the close of the perform-
ance. At the entrance you have merely to deliver
an admission ticket.

We hoped to find here the Spanish feminine type,
of which so far we had seen very few specimens.
However, the women who filled the boxes and the
balconies had nothing Spanish about them save the
mantilla and the fan. It was a good deal, but it was
not enough. The audience was composed mainly of
military men, as is the case in garrison towns. The
spectators in the pit stand up, as in primitive theatres.
The orchestra, composed of a single row of musicians,
most of them playing upon brass instruments, blew
courageously upon their cornets a piston an unvarying
refrain which recalled the trumpet-call at Franconi's
circus.

Try to understand, gentle reader, the eager im-
patience of two young, enthusiastic, and romantic
Frenchmen who are going to see for the first time
a Spanish dance in Spain.

At last the curtain rose upon a stage setting which

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

had the intention, not carried out, of being enchant-
ing and fairy-like ; the cornets a piston blew forth with
greater fury the above-mentioned blast, and the baile
nacional came forward in the persons of a male and a
female dancer, both of them armed with castanets.
Never have I seen anything sadder and more lamenta-
ble. No twopenny theatre has ever borne upon its
worm-eaten boards a more worn out, tired out, toothless
pair, a more complete pair of wrecks. The poor
woman, who had plastered herself over with inferior
powder, had a sky-blue tint which recalled to the
imagination the delightful image of a person who has
died of cholera, or of a drowned man who has been
too long out of the water. As for the man, he darkly
hopped up and down in his corner; he rose and fell
loosely like a bat which is crawling on its feet ; he
looked like a grave-digger engaged in burying himself.
If instead of castanets he had held a Gothic rebec, he
could have passed for the coryphaeus in the fresco of
the Dance of Death at Basle. As long as the dance
lasted they never once looked at each other ; they
seemed afraid to behold each other's ugliness, and to
burst into tears on seeing themselves so old, so de-
crepit, and so deathly-looking.

VERGAR A— BURGOS

This bolero of death lasted five or six minutes, at
the end of which the curtain fell, putting an end to the
torture of these two wretches and to our own. That
is how the bolero struck, two poor travellers in love
with local colour. Spanish dances exist in Paris alone,
just as sea-shells are to be found in curiosity shops
only, and never upon the seashore.

We went to bed pretty well disappointed. In the
middle of the night we were called up, for we had to
start again. The cold was still bitter, a regular
Siberian temperature, due to the elevation of the
plateau we were traversing and the snows by which
we were surrounded.

At Miranda we entered old Czst'ile (^Castl I/a la V'teja)
in the kingdom of Castile and Leon, symbolised by a
lion holding a shield seme of castles. These lions,
which are repeated until you are sick of them, are
usually of gray granite, and have an imposing heraldic
port. Between Ameyugo and Cubo, small, insignifi-
cant villages where we changed mules, the landscape
is extremely picturesque. The mountains draw nearer
and closer, and huge, perpendicular rocks rise on the
edge of the road steep as cliffs. On the left a torrent,
crossed by a bridge with truncated ogee arch, roars at

3 33

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the foot of a ravine, drives a mill, and covers with
foam the stones which block its way ; and in order
that nothing shall be wanting to make the picture
effective, a Gothic church falling in ruins, its roof
broken in, its walls covered with parasitic plants, rises
amid the rocks. In the background the Sierra shows
faint and blue. The prospect is undoubtedly beauti-
ful, but the Pancorvo defile is superior in its startling
grandeur. The cliffs leave barely room for the road,
and a point is reached where two huge masses of
granite incline toward each other, representing the arch
of a gigantic bridge, cut in the centre to stop the pas-
sage of an army of Titans. A second similar arch
within the thickness of the rock increases the illusion.
Never did a scene painter imagine a more picturesque
and better arranged scene. After the flat prospects of
the plains, the surprising effects met with at every step
in the mountains seem impossible and fabulous.

The posada where we stopped for dinner had a
stable for a hallway. This arrangement is invariably
to be met with in every Spanish posada, and in order
to reach your room you have to walk behind the heels
of the mules. The wine, which was blacker than
usual, had in addition a pretty local bouquet, derived

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VERGARA— BURGOS

from the goatskin. The maids of the inn wore their
hair hanging down their backs ; with this exception
their costume was that of French women of the lower
classes. As a general rule the national costume has
been preserved in Andalusia only ; in Castile you come
upon very few examples of it. The men all wear
pointed hats trimmed with velvet or silk tufts, or else
wolfskin caps, rather ferocious in shape, and the in-
evitable snufF-coloured or black cloaks. For the rest,
there is nothing very characteristic about their dress.

Between Pancorvo and Burgos we came upon three
or four little villages as dry as pumice stone and of the
colour of dust. I doubt whether Descamps ever
found in Asia Minor any walls more burnt, more
browned, more tanned, more grainy, more crisp,
more scorched than these. Along these walls loll asses
at least as good as the Turkish donkeys, and which he
ought to come to study. The Turkish donkey is a
fatalist, and you can see by his humble and dreamy
look that he is resigned to the blows which fate has in
reserve for him, and which he will submit to without
complaint. The Castilian donkey has a more philo-
sophical and deliberate look ; he understands that man
cannot do without him ; he is one of the household ;

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

he has read Don Quixote, and he boasts of descending
in a direct line from Sancho Panza's famous steed.
Side by side with the donkeys, moon thorough-bred dogs
of a superb breed, with fine nails, strong legs, backs,
and heads ; among others, great greyhounds, after the
style of those of Veronese or Velasquez, of great size
and beauty ; and a few dozen muchachos^ or street boys,
whose eyes sparkle amid their rags like black diamonds.
Old Castile is no doubt so called on account of the
great number of old women one meets in it, — and
such old women ! Macbeth's witches traversing the
heath of Dunsinane to prepare their infernal stew-
are charming girls by comparison with them. The
abominable vixens in Goya's " Caprices," which I had
believed to be nightmares and chimeras, are frightfully
accurate portraits. Most of these women are as hairy
as mouldy cheese and have moustaches like grenadiers.
Then their dress is a sight. If you were to take a
piece of stuff and spend ten years in dirtying it, scrap-
ing it, making holes in it, and patching it, until it lost
its original colour, you would not attain to the sub-
limity of these rags. These charms are increased by
a haggard, fierce aspect very different from the humble
and piteous mien of the poor people in France.

VERGAR A— BURGOS

Shortly before we reached Burgos a great building
on the hill was pointed out to us. It was the Car-
thusian monastery [Cartuja de Mirafiores). Shortly
afterwards the tracery of the cathedral spires, which
became every moment more distinct, showed against
the sky, and half an hour later we entered the famous
capital of Old Castile.

The main square of Burgos, in the centre of which
rises an indifferent bronze statue of Charles III, is
large and rather striking in appearance. Red houses,
upborne by pillars of bluish granite, enclose it on all
sides. Under the arcades and on the square itself all
sorts of small dealers are found, and an infinite number
of picturesque asses, mules, and peasants are wander-
ing around. Castilian rags show here in all their
splendour ; the meanest mendicant is aristocratically
draped in his mantle like a Roman emperor in the
purple. I cannot find a better comparison for these
mantles, both as regards their colour and the stuff
itself, than great pieces of tinder with ragged edges.
Don Caesar de Bazan's cloak, in the play of " Ruy
Bias," does not approach these triumphant and glorious
rags. The whole business is so dry, worn, and in-
flammable that you cannot help thinking the wearers

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

imprudent when they smoke and strike their flint and
steel. The children of six or eight years of age also
have their cloaks, which they wear with most amusing
gravity.

The/cW^ where we alighted was a regular Spanish
inn, where no one understood a word of French ; so
we had to trot out our Spanish, but I am bound to say
that, thanks to the remarkable intelligence which is
characteristic of these people, we were fairly well
understood.

The service of the inn was performed by a troop of
wild-haired kitchen wenches, bearing the finest names
in the world, — Casilda, Matilda, Balbina. Names
are always beautiful in Spain ; Lola, Bibiana, Pepa,
Hilaria, Carmen, Cipriana are tacked on to the most
prosaic creatures. One of the maids had hair of a
most vehement red, a very frequent colour in Spain,
where, contrary to the general belief, there are many
fair, and especially many red-haired women.

There are no bolsters to the beds, but two flat
pillows placed one on top of the other. These are
usually very hard, although the material is good, but it
is not customary to card the wool of the mattresses ; it
is merely turned over with a couple of sticks.

VERGARA — BURGOS

Although Burgos has been so long the first city of
Castile, it has not preserved a very marked Gothic
appearance. With the exception of one street in
which are to be seen a few windows and porticoes, of
the time of the Renaissance, surmounted by coats of
arms with supporters, the buildings do not date much
beyond the beginning of the seventeenth century and
are exceedingly vulgar-looking ; they are old-fashioned,
and yet they are not old. But Burgos has its cathe-
dral, which is one of the finest in the world. Unfor-
tunately, like all Gothic cathedrals, it is set in the
midst of numerous buildings which prevent your hav-
ing a general view and grasping its vast proportions.

The great portal opens upon a square, in the centre
of which rises a pretty fountain, surmounted by a
charming Christ, in white marble, — the butt of all the
little gamins in the city, whose greatest enjoyment is
to throw stones at statues. The portal, which is mag-
nificent embroidered work, deep cut and flowery as
a piece of lace, has been unfortunately scraped and
planed up to the first frieze by some Italian prelates —
great lovers of simple architecture, sober walls, and
ornaments in good taste — who desired to give the
cathedral a Roman look, greatly pitying, as they did,

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the poor barbarians who did not make much use of the
Corinthian order and who did not seem to be aware of
the beauties of the attic and the triangular pediment.
There are still many people of the same opinion in
Spain ; just as was the case in France before the
Romantic school caused the Middle Ages to be held
in honour and the meaning and beauty of the cathe-
drals to be understood.

Two slender spires, crocketed all the way up, with
much open work, festooned and embroidered, carved
even in their smallest details like the setting of a ring,
spring heavenward with all the ardour of faith and all
the rush of firmest conviction. Our incredulous cam-
paniles would not dare to venture into the skies with
no better support than lace of stone and ribs as delicate
as cobweb-threads. Another tower, also carved with
incredible richness, but less lofty, marks the intersec-
tion of the arms of the cross and completes the mag-
nificence of the outline.

A goodly fellowship of statues of saints, archangels,
kings, and monks animates the design, and this popu-
lation in stone is so numerous, so closely pressed, it
swarms so amazingly, that unquestionably it is larger
than the living population which inhabits the town.

VERG A Rxl— BURGOS

As one, steps into the church an incomparable mas-
terpiece compels you to stop : it is the carved wooden
door which opens into the cloister. It represents,
among other subjects in bas-relief, Christ's entrance
into Jerusalem. The jambs and transoms are covered
with exquisite figures of the most elegant appearance,
and so marvellously carved that it is hard to under-
stand how inert and opaque material like wood can
yield to such a capricious and clever fancy. It is
undoubtedly the finest gate in the world next to
Ghiberti's in the Baptistery at Florence, which Michael
Angelo, who was a connoisseur, considered worthy of
being the gate of Paradise. This admirable work
should be moulded and cast in bronze to secure it such
eternity as is at man's command.

The choir, the stalls in which are called sillaria^ is
closed by wrought-iron gates of wonderful hammered
work. The flooring is covered, as usual in Spain,
with immense esparto mats \ each stall has, in addition,
its own little dried grass or reed carpet. Above is a
sort of dome, formed by the interior of the tower
already spoken of. It is a mass of sculptured ara-
besques, statues, little columns, groining, lancets, pen-
dentives, which make you giddy. It would take more

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

than two years to note every detail. The work is as
close pressed as the leaves of a cabbage, open-worked
like a fish-knife, gigantic as a pyramid, delicate as an
earring; and how this filigree has kept up in mid-air
for centuries is past understanding. What kind of
men were they who erected these marvellous buildings,
which the prodigality of fairy palaces cannot surpass ?
Has the breed died out ? And are we, who boast of
being civilised, nothing but decadent barbarians after
all ? I am filled with a deep sadness when I visit one
of these mighty buildings of past days ; I am utterly
cast down and only care to withdraw into a corner, to
put a stone under my head, and to await in motionless
contemplation death, which is absolute stillness.

If you will go around with us in this vast madre-
pore, built by the prodigious human polypus of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we shall begin with
the small sacristy, which is a fairly large hall, in spite
of its name, and which contains an Ecce Homo, a
Christ on the Cross by Murillo, and a Nativity by
Jordaens, the latter framed in exquisitely carved wood-
work. In the centre is placed a large brasero^ which is
used to light the censers, and perhaps the cigarettes
also, for a great many Spanish priests smoke. The

V E R G A R A — B U R G O S

brasero is i. great brass basin placed upon a tripod, and
filled with charcoal or small fruit-stones lighted and
covered with fine ashes, which produce a gentle fire.
The brasero in Spain takes the place of chimneys,
which are very rare.

In the great sacristy, near the smaller one, there is
a Christ on the Cross by Domenico Theotokopouli,
called el Greco^ an extravagant and erratic painter,
whose work might be mistaken for sketches by Titian,
did not a certain affectation of sharp, carelessly painted
forms betray him very quickly. In order to give his
paintings the appearance of being very boldly painted,
he has daubed here and there, with incredible petulance
and brutality, thin, sharp lights, which traverse the
shadows like sword-cuts. All the same, el Greco is a
great painter ; the good works in his second manner re-
semble Romanticist paintings by Eugene Delacroix.

You have no doubt seen in the Spanish gallery at
Paris the portrait of el Greco's daughter, a magnificent
head which no master would refuse to sign. You can
see from that what an admirable painter Domenico
Theotokopouli could be when he was in his right
mind. It appears that his anxiety to avoid resembling
Titian, whose pupil he was, turned his head and led

4::l:4: ^ ^ :!; ^ * 4: * *?^*i?^^^^^ « ^ ~ ^ ^~

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him Into extravagances and fantasies which allowed his
splendid gifts to show only in intermittent gleams. El
Greco was, besides, an architect and a sculptor, a sub-
lime trinity, a luminous triangle, which is often met
with in the heaven of highest art.

The sacristy is panelled with cupboards, with
flowered and festooned columns in the richest taste.
Above the panelling there is a row of Venetian
mirrors, the use of which I do not well understand,
unless they are placed there merely as ornaments, for
they are too high up to allow one to look into them.
Above the mirrors are ranged in chronological order
the portraits of all the bishops of Burgos, from the first
one down to him who now fills the episcopal seat.
The oldest of these portraits touch the vaulting. Al-
though they are painted in oil, they look as if they
were in pastel or distemper; the reason being that
paintings in Spain are not varnished, for want of which
protection many valuable masterpieces have been de-
stroyed by damp. The portraits, although most of
them have a fine appearance, are not, however, by first-
class painters, and they are hung too high to allow one
to judge of the worth of the work. The centre of the
hall is occupied by a huge dresser and immense es-

VERGARA— BURGOS

parto baskets, in which are kept the ornaments and the
vessels employed in worship. Under two glass globes
are preserved as curiosities two coral trees, much less
complex in their branching than the least arabesque in
the cathedral. The door is ornamented with the arms
of Burgos in relief, with a seme of little crosses gules.

The chapel of Juan Cuchillcr, which is next to this
one, is not architecturally remarkable, and we were
hurrying to leave it, when we were asked to look up
and observe a most curious object, — a huge coffer,
fastened to the wall by iron clamps. It is difficult to
imagine a box more patched, worm-eaten, and broken ;
it is unquestionably the dean of earthly trunks. An
inscription in black letters, which runs, Cofre del Cid^
immediately gave, as you can readily believe, immense
importance to these four planks of rotten wood. The
coffer, if we are to believe the legend, is that which
the famous Ruy de Bivar, better known as the Cid
Campeador, having no money, — just like the ordinary
writer, — caused to be carried, full of sand and pebbles,
to a worthy Jewish usurer who lent upon due security,
with orders that he was not to open the monstrous
trunk until the Cid Campeador had repaid the sum
borrowed ; which goes to show that the usurers of

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

those days were easier to get along with than those of
our own times. Few Jews, and even few Christians
could now be found simple and debonair enough to
accept such collateral. The historic coffer is large,
broad, heavy, and deep, and covered with all sorts of
locks and padlocks ; when full of sand, it must have
taken at least six horses to drag it along; and the
worthy Israelite might well suppose that it was filled
with clothes, jewels, and silver-ware, and thus the more
readily humour the Cid's whim, — a whim which has
been provided for by the penal code, as well as many
other heroic fancies.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

BURGOS

ON leaving the chapel of Juan Cuchiller, you pass
into another room very picturesquely deco-
rated. The wainscoting is of oak, the hangings red,
and the ceiling skilfully imitates Cordova leather. It
contains a Nativity by Murillo, a Conception, and a
Jesus wearing a robe, all well painted.

The cloister is filled with tombs, most of them
closed with very close, strong gratings. The tombs,
which all contain illustrious persons, are cut in the
thickness of the wall and ornamented with coats of
arms and embroidered with carvings. On one of them
I noticed a group of Mary and Jesus, the latter holding a
book in his hand, exquisitely beautiful, and a chimera,
half animal, half arabesque, of strange and most surpris-
ing invention. On all these tombs rest life-size statues,
either of knights in armour or of bishops in their robes,
which might easily be mistaken, through the openings
of the gratings, for the dead they represent, so correct
is the attitude and so minute the detail.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

On the jambs of a door I noticed, as I passed, a
charming little statue of the Virgin, delightfully worked
out and extraordinarily complete in conception. In-
stead of the contrite and modest air usually given to
the Blessed Virgin, the sculptor has represented her
with a glance in which voluptuousness mingles with
ecstasy, in the intoxication of a woman who is con-
ceiving a God. She stands with her head thrown
back, breathing in with all her soul and strength the
ray of flame impelled by the symbolic dove, with a
strikingly original mingling of ardour and purity. It
was difficult to find anything novel in a subject so
frequently represented, but no subject is ever too worn
out for a genius.

The description of the cloister alone would require
a whole letter, and in view of the scant space and time
at our disposal, you must forgive our saying but little
about it, and returning to the church, where we shall
take the masterpieces as they come, without choice or
preference; for everything is beautiful or admirable,
and what we may omit is at least as good as what we
do speak of.

We shall stop first before a Passion of Jesus Christ,
in stone, by Felipe Vigarni. It is one of the largest

78 "

BURGOS

bassi-relievi in the world. In accordance with Gothic
custom, it is divided into several compartments : the
Garden of Gethsemane, the Bearing of the Cross, the
Crucifixion between the two thieves 5 avast composi-
tion, which, by the delicate work on the heads and the
fineness of the detail, is worth all that Albert Diirer,
Hemeling, or Holbein did of most delicate and exquisite
with their miniature-painter's brushes. This stone
epic ends with a magnificent Entombment. The
groups of sleeping apostles which fill the lower panels
in the Garden of Gethsemane are almost as beautiful
and in as pure a style as the prophets and saints of Fra
Bartolonimeo ; the heads of the holy women at the
foot of the cross have a pathetic and sorrowful expres-
sion, the secret of which was known to the Gothic
artists alone. In this case, the expression is united to
rare beauty of form. The soldiers are noticeable for
quaint and fierce equipments, such as were given in
the Middle Ages to antique, Oriental, or Jewish per-
sonages whose costume was not known. They are,
besides, represented with a boldness and skill which
contrast most happily with the idealism and melancholy
of the other figures. The whole work is framed in by
an architectural design wrought like goldsmith's work,

4 49

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of incredible taste and lightness. It was completed in

1536.

Since we are talking of sculpture, let us mention at
once the choir stalls, which have probably no rival in
the world. Each stall is a marvel. They represent
subjects from the Old Testament in bas-relief, and are
divided one from another by chimeras and fantastic
animals which form the arms of the stall. The flat
parts are formed of incrustations set off by black hatch-
ing like inlaid work on metal. And fancy arabesques
have never been carried farther ; both the conception
and the execution exhibit inexhaustible spirit, incredible
fertility, and constant invention. It is a new world, a
separate creation, as complete and varied as that of
God, in which plants live and men bloom, in which
boughs end in hands, and limbs in foliage, in which
chimeras with sly glance open wings provided with
claws, and in which the monstrous dolphins blow forth
water through their nostrils, — an incredible interlacing
of flowers, foliage, acanthus leaves, lotus, and calyxes
of blooms adorned with aigrettes and tendrils, of leaves
curled and dentelated, of fabulous birds, impossible
fishes, extravagant sirens and dragons, of which no
description can give an idea. The freest fancy reigns

BURGOS

in all these incrustations, the yellow tone of which,
showing against the dark background of the wood,
imparts the look of Etruscan painted vases, a look
quite justified by the cleanness and primitive character
of the outline. These designs, in which the pagan
genius of the Renaissance shows out, have no connec-
tion with the purpose of the stalls, and at times, even,
the choice of subject shows entire forgetfulness of the
sacredness of the place : children playing with masks,
women dancing, gladiators fighting, peasants gathering
grapes, maidens tormenting or caressing a fantastic
monster, animals playing on the harp, or even little
boys imitating in the basin of a fountain the famous
Manikin piece at Brussels. If the proportions were
somewhat more slender these figures would be equal to
the purest Etruscan work. Unity in aspect and infinite
variety in detail, that is the difficult problem which
mediaeval artists have almost always solved successfully.
At a distance of five or six yards, this carving, so fan-
tastic in conception, is grave, solemn, architectural,
brown in tone, and quite worthy of framing in the
pale, austere faces of the canons.

The Constable's Chapel, capilla del Condestable^ is a
complete church in itself. The tombs of Don Pedro

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Fernandez Velasco, Constable of Castile, and of his
wife, occupy the centre and are no small ornament to
it. They are of marble, superbly carved. The man
is lying down in his battle armour, enriched with ara-
besques in the best style of art ; the vergers take
imprints of them with damp paper and sell them to
tourists. His wife has her little dog by her side ; her
gloves and the pattern of her brocade robe are wrought
with incredible delicacy. The heads of the pair rest
upon marble pillows adorned with their coronet and
their arms. Gigantic coats of arms adorn the walls
of the chapel, and on the entablature are placed figures
bearing stone staves for banners and standards. The
retable — the architectural facades which accompany
altars are thus called — is sculptured, gilded, painted,
covered with arabesques and columns, and represents
the Circumcision, the figures being life size. On the
right side, where hangs the portrait of Donna Mencia
de Mondoza, Countess of Haro, stands a little Gothic
altar, illuminated, gilded, carved, adorned with an in-
finity of small figures, which one might take for the
work of Antonin Moine, so light and cleverly done
are they. On the altar there is a figure of Christ in
jet. The high altar is adorned with plates of silver

BURGOS

and crystal suns, whose flashing reflections produce a
singularly brilliant play of light. On the vaulting
blooms a sculptured rose of incredible delicacy.

In the sacristy, close to the chapel, is set in the
panelling a Magdalen attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.
The softness of the brown half-tints, which merge into
the lights by imperceptible gradations, the lightness of
touch with which the hair is painted, and the perfect
roundness of the arms lend weight to this supposition.
There is also preserved in this chapel the ivory diptych
which the Constable was in the habit of taking with
him into the field and before which he knelt in prayer.
The Capilla del Condestable belongs to the Duke of
Frias. As you go by, glance at the painted wood
statue of Saint Bruno by Pereida, a Burgos sculptor,
and at the epitaph to Villegas, the translator of Dante.

A great staircase, of noble design, with magnificent
carved chimeras, compelled our admiration for a time.
I do not know whither it leads and into what room
opens the small door at the top, but it is worthy of
the most splendid palace. The high altar in the
chapel of the Dukes of Abrantes is one of the most
curious inventions possible. It represents the genea-
logical tree of Jesus Christ. The strange idea is thus

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

carried out : the Patriarch Abraham lies down at the
foot of the composition, and into his fruitful loins
plunge the many branched roots of a huge tree, each
bough of which bears one of the ancestors of Jesus ;
the bough is subdivided into as many branches as there
are descendants. At the top is the Blessed Virgin
seated on a cloud throne ; the sun, the moon, and the
stars, silver and gilt, sparkle through the efflorescence
of the boughs. It is terrifying to think what an
amount of labour was required to carve out all these
leaves and work out all these folds, to make all these
branches, to cause all these figures to stand out
from the background. This retable, thus wrought, is
as large as the facade of a house and rises to a height
of thirty-six feet at least, including the three stories,
the second of which contains the Coronation of the
Virgin, and the last the Crucifixion, with Saint John
and the Virgin. The artist was Rodrigo del Haya,
a sculptor who lived in the middle of the sixteenth
century.

Saint Tecla's chapel is most peculiar. The archi-
tect and the sculptor seem to have aimed at compress-
ing the greatest amount of ornament within the least
possible space. It is a chapel in the richest, the most

1^ U R G O S

adorable, and the most charming bad taste. Every-
where are spiral columns wreathed with vine stems,
volutes which roll into infinite curves, strings of
cherubim cravated with wings, great swelling clouds,
twisted flames rising from perfume-burners, beams
that spread out fan-like, thick-blooming chicories, and
the whole gilded and painted in natural colours with
the skill of a miniaturist. The brocade of the dra-
peries is worked out thread by thread, point by point,
with amazing minuteness. The saint herself, in the
midst of the flames stirred up by Saracens in extrava-
gant costumes, turns to heaven her beautiful enamelled
eyes, and holds in her little, flesh-coloured hand a great
consecrated palm-branch curled in the Spanish fashion.
The vaulting is wrought in the same taste, and other
altars, of less dimensions but equally rich, fill the rest
of the chapel. We are in the presence, not of Gothic
delicacy or exquisite Renaissance taste, but of richness
substituted for purity of line ; nevertheless, it is still
very handsome, very beautiful, as is every excessive
thing complete in its own way.

The organ, of formidable size, has batteries of pipes
arranged in a sloping manner like pointed guns, pro-
ducing a threatening and warlike effect. The private

4:^:1: :!: 4; d:i-^4:^4,4.4j4.:l:4. 4,4; 4.4.^4: 4.4;

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

chapels each have their organ, but of smaller size.
On the retable of one of these chapels there is a
painting of such beauty that I cannot attribute it to
any other master than Michael Angelo. The unmis-
takable characteristics of the Florentine school at its
finest show triumphantly in this magnificent painting,
which would be the gem of the most splendid museum ;
yet Michael Angelo rarely painted in oils, and his
paintings are fabulously rare. I incline to think that
it is a composition painted by Sebastian del Piombo,
after a cartoon and sketch by the sublime artist. It
is known that, jealous of Raphael's success, Michael
Angelo occasionally employed Sebastian del Piombo in
order to unite colour to drawing and to surpass his
young rival. Whoever the painter may be, the work
itself is admirable. The Blessed Virgin, seated and
nobly draped, veils with her transparent scarf the
divine nudity of the child Jesus standing by her side;
two contemplative angels float silently in the blue sky ;
in the background a stern landscape, rocks, stretches
of ground, and a few broken walls. Words fail to
give an idea of the majesty, calm, and power of the
Virgin's head. The neck joins the shoulders with
such chaste, pure, and noble lines, the face breathes

BURGOS

such a sweet maternal peace, the hands arc so divinely
turned, the feet are so elegant and high-bred, that one
cannot take one's eyes off the painting. Add to the
marvellous drawing a simple, solid colouring, sustained
in tone, without brilliancy, without petty seeking after
light and shade, with a certain fresco look which per-
fectly matches the tone of the architecture, and you
have a masterpiece the equal of which can be found
onlv in the Florentine or Roman school.

There is also in the cathedral at Burgos a Holy
Family, unsigned, which I greatly suspect to be the
work of Andrea del Sarto ; and Gothic paintings on
panels by Cornelius Van Eyck, like ^those which are
in the Dresden Museum. Paintings of the German
school are not uncommon in Spain, and some of them
are exceedingly beautiful. We may mention as we
go some paintings by Fra Diego de Leyva — who
turned monk and entered the Cartuja de Miraflores
at the age of fifty-three — especially the one which
represents the martyrdom of Saint Casilda, whose two
breasts have been cut off by the executioner. Blood
spouts in great streams from the two red spots left on
the chest by the amputated flesh ; the two breasts lie
by the saint's side ; she gazes with an expression of

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

feverish and convulsive ecstasy at a tall angel with
dreamy and melancholy face, vi'ho bears a palm to
her. These terrifying paintings of martyrdoms are
very numerous in Spain, where the love of realism and
truth in art is carried to its utmost limit. The painter
will not spare you a single drop of blood ; you must
see the severed nerves shrink, the living flesh quiver,
and its dark purple contrast with the bloodless, bluish
whiteness of the skin, the vertebrae cut by the execu-
tioner's cimeter, the cruel marks made by the whips
and rods of the tormentors, the gaping wounds which
vomit blood and water through their livid lips — all
rendered with frightful accuracy. Ribeira has painted
in this way things that would make e/ Verdugo himself
shudder with horror ; and it really takes all the dread
beauty and the diabolical energy characteristic of that
great master to enable one to bear with those ferocious
slaughter-house paintings, which seem to have been
done for cannibals by an executioner's assistant. It
is enough to disgust one with being a martyr, and the
angel with his palm strikes one as but a slight com-
pensation for such atrocious torments. Ribeira very
often refuses even this consolation to his tortured vic-
tims, whom he leaves lying, like the pieces of a ser-

BURGOS

pent, in a" dun, threatening shade which no divine
ray illumines.

The need of truth, however repulsive it may be, is
a characteristic feature of Spanish art ; neither ideal-
ism nor conventionality enters into the genius of that
people, which is wholly devoid of aesthetic feeling.
Sculpture does not suffice for it ; it must have col-
oured statues. Madonnas rouged and dressed in real
dresses. Never, in its opinion, is material illusion
carried far enough, and that excessive love of realism
often makes it cross the slight distance which separates
sculpture from wax figures. The famous and highly
revered Christ of Burgos, which can be shown only
after the candles have been lighted, is a striking ex-
ample of that extraordinary taste. It is no longer
painted stone or wood, it is a human skin, — so, at
least, it is said, — stuffed with great skill and care ;
the hair is real, the eyes are provided with lashes, the
crown of thorns is of genuine thorns, — not a single
detail has been forgotten. But nothing can be more
gloomy and more disturbing to behold than that tall
crucified phantom, with its sham air of life and its
deathly immobility. The skin, of a musty brown
tone, is rayed by long streamlets of blood, so closely

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

imitated that one really believes the blood is actually
flowing. It does not require a great effort of imagina-
tion to credit the legend that this miraculous Crucified
One bleeds every Friday. Instead of a fluttering
drapery rolled around him, the Christ at Burgos
wears a white kilt, embroidered with gold. This
vestment produces a most peculiar effect, especially
to those who are not accustomed to see Our Lord
in such a costume. At the foot of the cross are set
three ostrich-eggs, a symbolical ornament of which I
do not catch the meaning, unless it be an allusion to
the Trinity as being the germ of all things.

We left the cathedral dazzled, crushed, intoxicated
with masterpieces, and with our powers of admiration
exhausted. We were shown the Cid's house. I am
wrong to say the Cid's house ; I should say, the place
where it may have been. It is a square piece of
ground surrounded by posts ; there does not remain
the least vestige to authorise the belief, but there is
nothing to prove the contrary, and therefore there is
no reason why one should not trust the tradition.

Saint Mary's Gate, erected in honour of Charles V,
is a remarkable piece of architecture. The statues
placed In the niches, although short and thickset,

' 60

BURGOS

have a look of strength and power which fully re-
deems their lack of height. Near the gate is the
promenade, which runs along the Arlen^on, a very
respectable river, at least two feet deep ; which is a
great deal for Spain. This promenade is adorned with
four statues, of rather fine appearance, representing
the four kings, or counts of Castile : Don Fernando
Gonzales, Don Alonzo, Don Enriquez II, and Don
Fernando I. Beyond this, there is not much worth
seeing in Burgos. The theatre is even more primitive
than that of Vitoria. That evening there was being
performed a play in verse, " The King and the Cob-
bler," by Zorilla, a very distinguished young writer
very popular in Madrid, who has already published
several volumes of verse, the style and harmony of
which are highly spoken of. All the seats had been
taken beforehand, and we had to forego this pleasure.
Before leaving Burgos we paid a visit to the Cartuja
de Mirafiores^ situated a mile and a half from the gate
of the city. A ^csn poor old, infirm monks have been
allowed to remain in this convent until they die.
Spain lost a good deal of its romantic character when
the monastic orders were suppressed, and I do not

quite see what she has gained in other respects,
_

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

The cartuja is situated at the top of a hill. The
exterior is simple and austere, great stone walls and
tiled roofs; everything done for the mind, nothing for
the eye : inside, long, cool, silent cloisters, white-
washed with lime, cell doors, windows with leaden
framework, in which are set biblical subjects in
painted glass, especially an Ascension, the com-
position of which is curious : the body of the Lord
has disappeared ; His feet alone are seen, the prints
of which are hollowed out upon a rock surrounded
by holy personages who are filled with v/onder.

A small court, in the centre of which rises a foun-
tain from which sparkling water falls drop by drop,
contains the prior's garden. A hv/ vine tendrils light
up the gloomy walls ; a few flowers, a (tw plants grow
here and there, much as they will, in picturesque dis-
order. The prior, an old man with noble and melan-
choly face, wearing a garment resembling a robe as
closely as possible (the monks are not allowed to wear
their costume), received us most politely and seated us
around the brasero^ for it was not very warm, and
offered us cigarettes, azucarillos^ and fresh water. A
book lay open on the table. I took the liberty of
glancing at it. It was the " Bibliotheca Cartuxiana,"

BURGOS

a collection of all the passages from different authors
which praise the order and life of the Carthusians.
The margins were annotated in his own hand, in
that dear old priest's writing, straight, firm, some-
what heavy, which suggests so much, and which the
quick-living, impetuous layman cannot master. So the
poor monk, compassionately left in that abandoned
convent, the vaulting of which will soon fall down
upon his unknown grave, was still dreaming of the
glory of his order, and with a trembling hand noting
upon the white leaves of the book some forgotten or
newly found passage.

The graveyard is shaded by two or three tall
cypresses like those in Turkish cemeteries. This
place of death contains four hundred and nineteen
Carthusians who have died since the convent was
erected. The ground is covered with thick, close
grass, in which neither tomb, cross, nor inscription is
visible. The dead lie there mingled together, as
humble in death as they were in life. The calm and
the silence of this anonymous cemetery are restful to
the soul. A fountain in the centre sheds its limpid,
silver tears over all these poor, forgotten dead. I
drank a few drops of that water, filtered through the

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

ashes of so many saintly men ; it was pure and icy-
cold, like death itself.

If the dwelling of men here is poor, that of God
is splendid. In the centre of the nave are placed the
tombs of Don Juan II and Oueen Isabella, his wife.
The human patience that built such a monument is
amazing. Sixteen lions, two at each corner, support-
ing eight scutcheons bearing the royal arms, form the
base. Add an equal number of virtues, allegorical
figures, apostles, and evangelists ; fill in with branches,
foliage, birds, animals, a network of arabesques, and
you have a very faint idea of this prodigious piece of
work. The crowned statues of the King and Queen lie
upon the top ; the King holds his sceptre in his hand
and wears a long robe ornamented with intertwining
lines and flowered work of marvellous delicacy.

The tomb of the Infant Alonzo is on the Gospel
side of the altar. The Infant is represented kneeling
before a prle-d'ieu. An open-work vine, in which are
perched children gathering grapes, festoons with ever
var^'ing fancifulness the Gothic arch which surrounds
the composition, itself partially set into the wall. These
marvellous monuments are in alabaster, and are the
work of Gil de Silva, who also carved the high altar.

BURGOS

On the right and left of the altar, which is of won-
drous beauty, are two open doors, through which one
sees two motionless Carthusians dressed in their shroud-
like white gowns. These two figures, which are
probably by Diego de Leyva, completely deceive you
at first glance. Stalls by Berruguete complete this
ensemble^ which one is surprised to meet with in a
lonely countryside.

From the top of the hill we were shown in the
distance San Pedro de Cardenas, where are the tombs
of the Cid and Donna Ximenes, his wife. The only
thing wanting to the Cid's glory was to be canonised,
and he would have been if, just before dying, he had
not had the Arabic, heretic, and ill-sounding notion
to order that his famous horse Babieca should be
buried with him, which cast a doubt upon his orthodoxy.
Besides his merit as a hero, the Cid enjoys that of
having inspired so well the unknown poets of the
Romancer OS ^ Guillen de Castro, Diamante, and Pierre
Corneille.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

VALLADOLID

THE royal mail-coach in which we left Burgos
deserves to be described. Imagine an ante-
diluvian carriage, of an obsolete model to be met with
in fossil Spain only; enormous splayed wheels, with
very thin spokes, placed very far behind the body,
which had been painted red in the days of Isabella
the Catholic •, an extravagant body, pierced with all
sorts of odd-shaped windows and furnished inside
with small cushions covered with satin, which may
have been rose-coloured at some distant period, and
trimmed with pinkings and ornaments of chenille,
which may very well have been of many colours.
This antique coach-body is artlessly hung with ropes
instead of springs, and the weak places are lashed
with esparto cords. To the coach is harnessed a
fairly long string of mules, with an assortment of
postilions and a mayoral, wearing an Astrakhan lamb-
skin jacket and sheep-skin trousers of a most Mosco-
vitish appearance.

' . 66

VALLADOLID

Away i^e went in this concern in the midst of a
whirlwind of shouts, oaths, and crackings of whips.
We went lilce the very devil ; we flew over the ground,
and the vague outlines of surrounding objects flashed
on the right and on the left with phantasmagoric
rapidity. I have never seen more spirited, restive, or
wilder mules. At every relay it took a host of f/iucha-
chos to harness one to the carriage. The devilish
beasts emerged from the stable walking on their hind
legs, and the only way to reduce them to the condi-
tion of quadrupeds was to hang a bunch of postilions
to their bridle.

The country we travelled was singularly wild;
great barren plains, the monotony of which was un-
broken by a single tree, bounded by ochre -yellow
mountains, and hills to which the distance could
scarcely communicate a faint blue tone. From time
to time we traversed earthy-looking villages with
walls built of clay, and most of them in ruins. As it
was Sunday there stood along these yellowish walls,
lighted up by a faint sunbeam, motionless as mum-
mies, files of haughty Castilians draped in their snuff-
coloured rags, occupied in totnar el sol^ an amusement
the dulness of which would kill in an hour the

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

most phlegmatic of Germans. However, this char-
acteristic Spanish enjoyment was perfectly excusable
on that day, for it was atrociously cold. A fierce wind
swept the plain with a roar as of thunder, and of
chariots full of armour driven over brazen vaults. I do
not believe that anything wilder, more barbarous, and
more primitive could be met with among Hottentot
kraals or Kalmuck camps. Profiting by a halt, I
entered one of the huts. It was a windowless den,
with a hearth of rough stones placed in the centre, and
a hole in the roof to allow the smoke to emerge. The
walls were of a bituminous brown worthy of Rembrandt.
We dined at Torrequemada, a pueblo situated upon a
small river, the bed of which is filled up with the ruins
of old fortifications. Torrequemada is noticeable for
its total lack of glass windows. Glass panes are to be
found in the tavern only, the kitchen of which, in
spite of this incredible piece of luxury, is nevertheless
provided with a hole in the roof. After having swal
lowed a few garbanzos^ which rattled in our stomach
like shot on a tambourine, we got back Into our box
and the steeple-chase began once more. The coach
behind the mules was like a pan tied to a tiger's tail ;
the noise It made excited them still more ; a straw fire

VALLADOLID

burning in the middle of the road nearly made them
bolt ; they were so skittish that they had to be held by
the bridle and their eyes covered with the hand when
another carriage met us. As a general rule, when two
carriages drawn by mules meet, one of them is bound
to be upset, and by and by what was bound to happen
did happen. I was busy turning over in my mind a
hemistich, as is my habit in travelling, when I saw
coming towards me, describing a rapid parabola, my
companion who was sitting opposite to me. His action
was followed by a very heavy shock and a general
smashing of the carriage. "Are you dead?" asked
my friend, as he finished his curve. " On the con-
trary," I replied ; " are you ? " " Not quite," he
answered. We got out as quickly as we could by the
broken roof of the poor coach, which was broken into
a thousand pieces. As for the mules, they had gone off,
and had carried away the fore-body and the two front
wheels. Our own personal loss amounted to one
button, which gave way owing to the violence of the
shock and could never be found again. It was really
impossible to upset more satisfactorilv.

In other respects our position was not partlcularlv
pleasant, although we were seized with a most un-

6^ '

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

seasonable fit of laughter. Our mules had vanished
into smoke and our coach was dismantled and wheel-
less. Happily the venta was not very far ofF, and
a couple of galleys were fetched and took us and
our luggage. The galley thoroughly deserves its
name. It is a two-wheeled or four-wheeled cart
without top or bottom. The trunks and packages
are placed in a net of reed ropes. On top of them
is laid a mattress, a true Spanish mattress, which in
no wise prevents your feeling the corners of the lug-
gage thrown In pell-mell. The patients seat them-
selves as best they can upon this rack, by the side
of which Saint Laurence's and Gautimozin's grid-
irons were beds of roses, for at least on those one
could turn around. In this dreadful vehicle, which
had no manner of springs, we drove at the rate of
about four Spanish leagues an hour, that is to say,
about five French leagues, or three miles faster than
the best mail-coaches on the finest roads ; the road
we were travelling over was full of very steep hills
and very sharp slopes, down which we always went
at full gallop. It takes all the assurance and skill of
the Spanish postilions and conductors to prevent the
whole business smashing up into innumerable bits at

VALLADOLID

the bottom of precipices ; — instead of being upset once,
we ought really to have been upsetting all the time.

Duenas looks like a Turkish cemetery. The caves,
which are dug out of the living rock, receive air
through small turrets which swell out like turbans
and look singularly like minarets. A church of Moor-
ish appearance completes the illusion. To the left
the Canal of Castile shows from time to time in the
plain. It is not yet finished.

At Venta de Trigueros there was harnessed to our
galley a rose-coloured horse of remarkable beauty
(the mules had been given up), which fully justified
Eugene Delacroix, whose horse in the " Triumph of
Trajan " has been criticised. Men of genius are
always right ; what they invent exists, and nature
imitates their most eccentric fancies, or nearly all
of them.

After having followed a road running between em-
bankments and buttressed counterforts quite monumen-
tal in character, we at last entered Valladolid ; pretty
well broken up, but with our noses intact and our
arms still fixed to our bodies.

We alighted at a superb parador^ perfectly clean
and were given two fine rooms, with a balcony look-

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

ing out upon a square, carpets of coloured matting,
and walls painted in distemper in yellow and apple-
green. Up to this time we have seen no reason for
the charge of filth and bareness which all travel-
lers have brought against Spanish inns. We have
not yet found any scorpions in our beds, and the
insects we were threatened with have not put in an
appearance.

Valladolid is a great city almost wholly depopulated.
It is capable of containing two hundred thousand souls,
and has not much more than twenty thousand inhabi-
tants. It is a clean, quiet, elegant city, which feels
its nearness to the Orient. The facade of San Pablo
is covered from top to bottom with marvellous carving
of the time of the early Renaissance. In front of the
portal are ranged by way of posts granite pillars sur-
mounted by heraldic lions, which hold in every pos-
sible position shields bearing the arms of Castile.
Opposite is a palace of the time of Charles V, with
an arcaded courtyard extremely elegant, and sculp-
tured medallions of rare beauty. The Inland Reve-
nue sells in this architectural gem its wretched salt and
abominable tobacco. By a happy chance the facade
of San Pablo is situated on a square ; thus it may

VALLADOLID

be photographed, which is very difficult in the case
of mediaeval buildings, u'hich are almost always set
in the midst of groups of houses and vile stalls • but
the rain, which never ceased falling all the time
we remained in Valladolid, did not permit us to get
a picture. Twenty minutes' sunshine between the
showers at Burgos had enabled us to get capital
plates of the spires of the cathedral and of a large
portion of the portal ; but at Valladolid we did not
even have the twenty minutes, which we regretted
all the more that the city abounds in charming speci-
mens of architecture.

The building in which the library is placed, and
which it is proposed to turn into a museum, is in
the purest and most exquisite taste. Although some
of the ingenious restorers who prefer boards to
bassi-relievi have shamefully scraped its admirable
arabesques, there still remain enough to constitute
a masterpiece of elegance. Draughtsmen would be
interested in a balcony which projects from the corner
of a palace in this same San Pablo Square, and forms
a look-out singularly original in taste. The section
of the small column which connects the two arches
is quite remarkable. It was in this house, we were

^:l;^:l:4;^^^i: 4: 4, 4.4. 4; 4: 4.4; 4; 4. 4; 4: 4; 4; 4.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

told, that the terrible Philip II was born. We may
also mention a colossal fragment of an unfinished
granite cathedral by Herrera, in the style of Saint
Peter's at Rome. This building was abandoned in
favour of the Escorial, that gloomy fancy of the gloomy
son of Charles V.

We were shown, in a closed church, a collection of
paintings which had been brought together after the
closing of the convents, and had been put in this
place by order of the authorities. It appears that
the people who pillaged the churches and convents
were excellent artists and admirable connoisseurs, for
they left merely horrible daubs, the best of which
would not fetch five francs in a curiosity shop. In
the museum there are a few passable paintings, but
nothing worth speaking of; on the other hand, numer-
ous wooden carvings and ivory crucifixes, remarkable
more for their size and their age than for the real
beauty of the work. People who go to Spain to pur-
chase curiosities are apt to be greatly disappointed :
there is not a single valuable weapon, not a single
rare edition, not a smgle manuscript to be had.

The Plaza de la Const'itucion at Valladolid is very
handsome and very large, surrounded by houses up-

VALLADOLID

borne bygreat bluish granite columns in one piece,
which have a fine effect. The Palace of the Consti-
tution, painted apple-green, is adorned with an inscrip-
tion in honour of Innocent Isabella, as the little queen
is called here, and with a clock-dial lighted at night
like that of the Hotel de Ville at Paris, — an innovation
which appears to delight the inhabitants. Under the
arcades are established multitudes of tailors, hatters,
and shoemakers, the three most flourishing trades in
Spain. There also are situated the chief cafes, and all
the population seems to concentrate at this point ; in
the rest of the city you scarcely meet an occasional
passer-bv, — a servant-girl carrying water, or a peasant
driving his donkey. The effect of solitude is further
increased by the great extent of ground over which the
city is spread ; squares are more numerous than streets.
The Campo Grande, near the great gate, is surrounded
by fifteen convents, and more could be put on it.

On leaving Valladolid the character of the land-
scape changes and the barrens reappear ; only, they
have what is lacking to those of Bordeaux, clumps of
stunted green oaks and more wide-spreading pines;
otherwise they are just as arid, lonely, and desolate-
looking, — here and there a few heaps of ruins which

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

are called villages, and which have been burned and
ravaged by rebels, and in which wander a few ragged
and wretched-looking inhabitants. There is nothing
picturesque but a few women's skirts, of the brightest
canary-yellow, adorned with embroidery in several
shades representing birds and flowers.

Olmedo, where we stopped for dinner, is completely
ruined ; whole streets are deserted, others are filled up
by the fallen houses, the grass grows in the squares as
in the accursed cities of which the Bible speaks ; soon
there will be no other inhabitants in Olmedo than the
flat-headed viper, and the short-sighted owl, and the
dragon of the desert will drag his scaly belly over
the stones of the altars. A belt of old and dismantled
fortification surrounds the city, and the charitable ivy
covers with its green mantle the bareness of the ruined,
gaping towers. Tall, handsome trees border the ram-
parts and Nature does its best to repair the ravages
of time and war. The diminution of the population
of Spain is frightful. In the time of the Moors it had
thirty-two millions of inhabitants ; now it scarcely has
more than ten to eleven millions. Unless some fortu-
nate but scarcely probable change occurs, or marriages
become supernaturally fecund, cities formerly flourish-

VALLADOLID

ing will bp wholly abandoned, and their brick and clay
ruins will, little by little, melt away into the earth,
which devours everything, both cities and men.

The landscape beyond Olmedo is not very varied in
character; only, I noticed before we reached the place
where we were to sleep a beautiful sun effect. The
luminous beams lighted up the slope of a chain of very
distant mountains, every detail of which stood out with
extraordinary clearness; their sides bathed in shade
were almost invisible, the heavens were leaden. A
painter who should reproduce such an effect accurately
would be charged with exaggeration and inaccuracy.

The posada^ this time, was much more Spanish than
those we had hitherto seen. It consisted of a vast
stable, surrounded by whitewashed rooms, each con-
taining four or five beds. It was wretched and bare,
but not unclean. The characteristic proverbial filth
had not yet put in an appearance ; there was even
unheard-of luxury in the dining room, — a series of
engravings representing the adventures of Telemachus ;
hideous coloured daubs with which Paris floods the
universe.

We started again in the morning, and when the first
light of dawn enabled us to distinguish the scene, I be-

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

held a sight which 1 shall never forget. We had just
changed horses at a village called, I think, Saint Mary
of the Snows, and we were climbing the foot-hills of the
chain we had to cross. We seemed to be in the midst
of a Cyclopean city. Huge sandstone blocks that
looked like buildings rose on every hand and stood out
against the sky like the silhouettes of fantastic Babels.
Here a flat stone which had fallen across two other
rocks, closely resembled a Druidical peulven or dol-
men J a little farther a succession of peaks, shaped like
the shafts of columns, imitated porticoes and propy-
lasa ; or again it was a chaos, a sandstone ocean, petri-
fied at the moment when It was lashed to maddest fury.
The grayish-blue tone of the rocks heightened still
more the strangeness of the prospect. Everywhere
from the interstices of the stones spurted the spray or
the crystal drops of springs, and what particularly
delighted me was that the melted snow ran into the
hollows and formed little pools bordered by an eme-
rald-coloured sward, or set in a silver circle of snow
which had resisted the action of the sun. Pillars
erected from point to point, which served to indicate
the road when the snow stretches its treacherous
mantle over both the road track and the precipices.

VALLADOLID

imparted to it a monumental aspect. Torrents roared
and foamed on all hands ; the road crossed them over
dry stone bridges such as are to be met with at every
step in Spain.

The mountains rose higher and higher; we had no
sooner crossed one than another and loftier one rose,
which we had not before seen. The mules proved
unequal to the work, and recourse was had to oxen.
This allowed us to descend, and to climb on foot the
rest of the sierra. I was fairly intoxicated by the pure,
bracing air. I felt so light, joyous, and enthusiastic
that I shouted, and leaped like a kid.

The high peaks sparkled and twinkled in the beams
of the sun like a dancer's silver-spangled bodice; some
of the peaks were cloud-capped, and melted into the
heavens by imperceptible gradations, for nothing is so
like a cloud as a mountain. The scarps and undula-
tions, the tones and the forms, were such as no art can
give an idea of, no pen or brush suggest. The moun-
tains realised all that we have dreamed they would be,
which is no slight praise. Only, we imagined them
higher; their vast size is to be perceived only by com-
parison. On looking closer, what has been mistaken
from afar for a blade of grass is a eixty-foot pine.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

At the turn of a bridge, admirably adapted for a
hicrhwayman's ambuscade, we saw a small column with
a cross. It was a monument in memory of a poor
devil who had ended his days in this narrow gorge,
driven to this through mama irada (the angry hand).
From time to time we met Maragatos in their sixteenth-
century costume : a leather jacket buckled tight, full
trousers, and broad-brimmed hats ; Valencianos, with
their white linen drawers resembling a Klepht's kilts,
a handkerchief tied around their heads, footless white
gaiters edged with blue, like the knemis of antiquity, a
long piece of stuff {capa de muestra^ with cross stripes
of brilliant colours, draped in very elegant fashion over
the shoulders. So far as their skin could be seen, it
was the colour of Florentine bronze. We also saw
trains of mules harnessed in charming fashion, with
bells, fringes, and manv-coloured blankets, and the
arrieros carrying carbines. We were delighted ; the
wished-for picturesque was turning up abundantly.

As we proceeded higher, the strips of snow became
thicker and broader, but a ray of sunshine made the
whole mountain gleam like a woman laughing through
her tears. On all sides meandered little brooklets,
scattered like the disordered hair of naiads and more

VALLADOLID

limpid than diamonds. By dint of climbing we
reached the topmost crest, and sat down upon the
pedestal of a huge granite lion which marks, at the
top of the watershed, the boundaries of Old Castile.
Seized with the fancy to pluck a lovely rose-coloured
flower, whose botanical name I do not know but which
grows in the cracks of the sandstone, we climbed a
rock which we were told was the place where Philip
II used to sit and watch the progress of the work on
the Escurial. Either the tradition is apocr)'phal or
Philip had uncommonly good sight.

The coach, which was crawling slowly up the steep
slopes, at last caught us up, the oxen were unhar-
nessed, and we galloped down the descent. We
stopped to dine at Guadarrama, a little village nestling
at the foot of the mountain, and whose sole monument
is a granite fountain erected by Philip II. Here,
through a strange inversion of the natural order of
dishes, our dessert consisted of goat's-milk soup.

Madrid, like Rome, is surrounded by desert coun-
try, barren, dry, and mournful beyond all conception.
There is not a tree nor a drop of water, not a green
plant nor a trace of humidity, nothing but yellow sand
and iron-gray rocks ; and as one leaves the mountains
6 8^

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

behind, the rocks become stones only j here and there
a dusty venta, or a cork-coloured steeple which pokes
up on the edge of the horizon ; big, melancholy oxen
dragging chariots, a fierce-looking peasant riding a
horse or mule, his carbine at his saddle-bow, his som-
brero pulled down over his eyes ; or again, long lines
of white asses carrying cut straw tied with network,
— and that is all. The leading ass, or coronel^ always
wears a little plume or pompon, which marks his rank
in the long-eared hierarchy.

A few hours later, which seemed longer, so im-
patient were we to arrive, we at last saw Madrid
plainly enough, and in a few minutes we entered the
capital of Spain by the Iron Gate. The coach first
proceeded down an avenue planted with stout polled
trees, and bordered by brick towers, which are pump-
ing stations. Speaking of water, although the transi-
tion is not a happy one, I forgot to tell you that we
had crossed the Manzanares on a bridge worthy of a
more genuine river. Then we proceeded past the
Queen's Palace, which is one of those buildings
which it is customary to say are in good taste. The
vast terraces upon which it rises give it a fairly

grand appearance. After having undergone inspec-
—

VALLADOLID

tion at t^e Customs, we put up close to the Calle de
Alcala and the Prado, and we lost no time in sending
Manuel, our valet, who was a thorough-paced aficionado
and tauromachian, to purchase tickets for the next
bull-ficrht.

TRAFELS IN SPAIN

MADRID

NEVER did any days seem so long to me ; to
quiet my impatience I read more than ten
times over the posters at the corners of the principal
streets. They promised marvels : eight bulls from the
most famous breeding-ground ; for picadores Sevilla
and Antonio Rodriguez ; for espadas Juan Pastor,
called also el Barbero^ and Guillen ; winding up with
orders to the public not to throw into the arena
orange-peels and other projectiles which might damage
the combatants.

The name matador is not much used in Spain to
designate the man who slays the bull ; he is called
espada (sword), which is nobler and more high-toned ;
nor do they say toreador^ but torero. I present this use-
ful piece of information, by the way, to those who
indulge in local colour in drawing-room songs and
comic opera. The fight is called media corrida^ or half
performance, because formerly there were two every
Monday, one in the morning, the other at five in the

MADRID

afternoon^ and the two together made up a perform-
ance. The afternoon function has alone survived.

It has been said and repeated everywhere that the
taste for bull-fights Is going out in Spain, and that
civilisation will do away with them. If it does
so, it will be so much the worse for civilisation, for
a bull-fight is one of the finest spectacles man can
see ; but the day has not yet come, and tender-hearted
writers who affirm the contrary had better go some
Monday to the Alcala Gate, and they will be convinced
that the taste for this ferocious enjoyment is far from
dying out.

Monday, the Day of Bulls, dia de toros^ is a holiday ;
no one works, the whole town is up. Those who
have not yet secured their tickets hasten to the Calle
de Caritas, where is situated the box office, in hopes
of finding some vacant seat ; for by an arrangement
which cannot be too highly praised, the whole of the
enormous amphitheatre is divided into numbered stalls.
The Calle de Alcala, which is the main artery into which
the populous streets of the city empty, is full of foot-
passengers, horsemen, and carriages. For on this day
emerge from dusty coach-houses the most comical
and extravagant calesas and carnages, the most fan-

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

tastic equipages, the most amazing mules. The cal-
esas are like the Neapolitan corr'icola. They have
great red wheels, no springs, a carriage body adorned
with more or less allegorical pictures and upholstered
in old damask or faded serge, with silk fringes and
trimmings ; the whole having a curious rococo air which
produces a most comical effect. The driver sits on
the shaft, whence he can harangue and beat his mule
in comfort, and this leaves one seat the more for his
clients. The mule itself is adorned with as many
plumes, pompons, tufts, fringes, and balls as can pos-
sibly be put on the harness of any sort of a quadruped.
The calesa usually contains a manola and her female
friend, with her manolo^ besides a bunch of muchachos
hanging on behind. The whole concern goes like the
wind, in a whirlwind of shouts and dust. There are
also coaches drawn by four or five mules, the like of
which are to be met with only in the paintings of Van
der Meulen which represent the conquests and the
hunts of Louis XIV. All sorts of wheeled vehicles
are called into use, for to drive in a calesa to the bull-
fight is the most stylish thing a manola can do. She
will pledge her very bed in order to have some money
for that day, and without being exactly virtuous during

' 86

MADRID

the rest of the week, she is certainly very much less
so on Sundays and Mondays. Country people are also
seen, coming in on horseback, their carbines at their
saddle-bow ; others mounted on asses, either by them-
selves or with their wives ; besides the carriages of the
society people, and a multitude of worthy citizens and
senoras wearing mantillas, who hasten on: for now
comes the detachment of mounted national guards,
trumpeters in front, riding forward to clear the arena,
and for nothing in the world would the spectators miss
the clearing of the arena and the precipitate flight of
the alguazil when he has thrown to the official of the
fight the key of the tor-il^ where are shut up the horned
gladiators. The toril is opposite the matadero^ where
the dead animals are skinned. The bulls are brought
the day before by night into a meadow near Madrid
called el arroyo^ which is the place whither go to walk
the aficionados^ — a walk which is not without danger,
for the bulls are at libertv and their drivers have a
great deal of trouble in looking after them. Then
they are driven into the amphitheatre stable with the
help of old oxen accustomed to the work and who
mingle with the fierce herd. The Plaza de Toros is
situated to the left, outside the Alcala Gate, which, by

8^ ■

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the way, is a rather fine gate, somewhat like a tri-
umphal arch, with trophies and other heroic orna-
ments. It is a huge circus, which is in no wise
remarkable externally ; the walls are whitewashed.
As every one has secured a ticket beforehand, there
is no disorder at the entrance ; e"ery one climbs to his
seat and takes the one marked with his number.

The interior is well arranged. Around the arena,
which is truly Roman in size, runs a circular wooden
fence six feet high, painted red, and provided on each
side, two feet above the level of the ground, with a
wooden ledge, on which the chulos and banderilleros rest
one foot in order to spring over when they are too
sharply pressed by the bull. The fence is called las
tahlas. There are four doors in it, which give the
attendants or the bulls access to the arena, and which
also allow of the removal of the bodies, etc. Outside
this fence there is another rather higher, which forms
with the first a sort of passagewav in which stand the
chulos when they are tired, the substitute picadore
{sobresaliente) who is bound to be there, ready dressed
and armed, in case his chief should happen to be
wounded or killed, — the cachetero ; and some aficio-
nados who by dint of perseverance manage, in spite of

MADRID

regulations, to make their way into that coveted pas-
sage, entrance to which is as much sought after in
Spain as entrance to the wings of the Opera in Paris.

As it often happens that the maddened bull leaps
the first fence, the second is further provided with a
network of rope intended to prevent a repetition of
the spring. A number of carpenters stand ready with
axes and hammers to repair any damage which may
happen to the enclosures so that accidents are practi-
cally impossible. And yet bulls (technically called
multas piernas, many-legged) have been known to leap
the second fence, as is proved by an engraving in
Goya's " Tauromaquia." The engraving of the
famous author of the " Caprices " represents the death
of the alcalde of Torrezon, gored by a leaping bull.

Beyond the second fence begin the benches intended
for the spectators. Those nearest the ropes are called
barrera seats, the centre ones tendldo^ and those which
are against the first row of gradas de cubierta are called
tabloncillos. These benches, which recall those of the
Roman amphitheatre, are of bluish granite and have
no other roof than the sky. Immediately above come
the covered seats, gradas cubiertas^ which are divided
into delantera^ or front seats, centra^ or centre seats,

4.^4; 4; 4; 4; 4*4; 4^ 4*4^4. 4; 4. 4; 4. 4.^4. 4; 4*4; 4;^

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

and tahloncillo^ back seats. Above these rise the boxes,
called palcos and palcos por asientos^ one hundred and
ten in number. These boxes are very large and can
each contain a score of spectators. The palco por
asientos differs from the ordinary box in that a single
seat may be hired in it, like the balcony stalls at the
Opera. The boxes of the Queen Regent and the
" Innocent Isabella " are ornamented with draperies of
silk and enclosed in curtains. Next to them is the
box of the ayuntamiento^ who presides over the sports
and has to settle any difficulties which occur.

The circus, so divided, contains twelve thousand
spectators, all comfortably seated and seeing easily ; an
indispensable matter in a spectacle intended purely for
the eyes. The vast place is always full, and those
who cannot procure sombra seats (shady seats) would
rather cook alive on the benches in the burning sun
than miss a fight. It is the proper thing for people
who wish to be considered in good society to have
their box at the bull-fight, just as in Paris one has a
box at the Italian opera.

When I issued from the corridor to take my seat,
I felt dazzled and giddy. Torrents of light poured
down upon the circus, for the sun is a superior light-

MADRID

giver which has the advantage of not shedding oil, and
it will be long before gas itself will replace it. A vast
rumour rose, like a mist of noise, above the arena ; on
the sunny side fluttered and sparkled thousands of fans,
and little round parasols with reed handles. They
looked like swarms of birds of changing colours, trying
to take flight. There was not a single empty seat. I
can assure you that to see twelve thousand spectators
in a theatre so vast that God alone can paint the ceil-
ing of it with the splendid blue which he draws from
the urn of eternity, is in itself a wonderful spectacle.

The mounted tainonal guards, very well horsed and
very well dressed, were riding around the arena, pre-
ceded by two alguazils wearing hats and plumes of the
time of Henry IV, black doublet and cloak and knee-
boots. They drove away a few obstinate aficionados
and belated dogs. The arena having been cleared, the
two alguazils went to fetch the toreros, composed of
the picadores, the chulos, the banderilleros, and the
espada, who is the chief actor in the drama. These
entered to the sound of trumpets. The picadores ride
blindfolded horses, for the sight of the bull might
frighten the steeds and cause them to swerve danger-
ously. The costume of the riders is very picturesque.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

It consists of a short, open jacket, of orange, green, or
blue velvet, heavily embroidered with silver or gold,
with spangles, quillings, fringes, filigree buttons, and
ornaments of all sorts, especially on the shoulders,
where the velvet completely disappears under a lumi-
nous phosphorescent network of interlaced arabesques ;
a vest of the same style, a shirt with lace front, a
striped cravat carelessly knotted, a silk girdle ; breeches
of buffalo hide stuffed and lined inside with tin like
postilions' boots, as a protection for the legs against
the horns of the bull ; a very wide-brimmed gray hat
(sombrero), low crowned, with an enormous bunch of
favours ; a heavy purse or cadogan of black ribbon,
which is called, I think, mono^ and which binds the hair
behind the head. The weapon is a lance fitted with a
point one or two inches in length, which cannot
wound the bull severely, but is sufficient to irritate
and to keep him back ; a leather band fitted to the hand
prevents the lance slipping. The saddle rises very
high in front and behind, and resembles the steel clad
saddles in which were set the knights of the Middle
Ages at their tourneys ; the stirrups are of wood, in the
shape of a half-shoe like Turkish stirrups. A long
iron spur, sharp as a dagger, is fitted to the horseman's

MADRID

heel. Tq urge on the horses, often half dead, an
ordinary spur would not be sufficient.

The chulos look very bright and gay in their satin
knee-breeches, green, blue, or pink, embroidered with
silver on every seam, their silk stockings, white or
flesh-coloured, their jacket adorned with designs and
ornaments, their tight belts, and their little montera
perched coquettishly upon the ear. They carry on
their arm a stuff mantle {capa\ which they unroll and
flutter before the bull to irritate, dazzle, or bewilder
it. They are well made, slender young fellows, unlike
the picadores, who are usually noticeable for their
very great height and athletic proportions. These
have to depend on their strength, the others on theii
agility.

The banderilleros wear the same costume, and their
particular office is to strike into the shoulders of the
bull a sort of arrow fitted with a barbed iron and
adorned with strips of paper. These arrows are called
handerillas^ and are intended to excite the fury of the
bull and exasperate it sufficiently to make it come well
up to the matador's sword. Two banderillas must be
stuck in at the same time, and in order to do that,
both arms must be passed between the bull's horns;

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

a ticklish operation, during the performance of which
any absent-mindedness would be dangerous.

The espada's costume differs from that of the ban-
derilleros only in being richer, more splendidly adorned,
and in being occasionally of purple silk, a colour
peculiarly distasteful to the bull. The espada's
weapons are a cross-sword with a long hilt, and a
piece of scarlet stuff fixed to a cross-stick. The
technical name of this sort of fluttering buckler is
muleta. Now that you are acquainted with the stage
and the actors, I shall show you them at work.

The picadores, escorted by the chulos, proceed to
the box of the ayuntamiento, where they perform a
salute, and whence are thrown to them the keys of
the toril. These keys are picked up and handed to
the alguazil, who bears them to the official of the ring
and gallops off as hard as he can, amid the yells and
shouts of the crowd ; for alguazils and all representa-
tives of justice are no more popular in Spain than are
the police and city guard with us. Meanwhile the two
picadores take their stand on the left of the gates of
the toril, which is opposite the Queen's box, the en-
trance of the bull being one of the most interesting
points in the performance. They are posted close to

MADRID

each other, backed up against the tablas, firmly seated
in their saddles, lance in rest and ready to receive
bravely the fierce animal. The chulos and bande-
rilleros stand at a distance or scatter about the arena.

All these preparations, which are longer in descrip-
tion than in reality, excite curiosity to the highest
degree. All eyes are anxiously fixed upon the fatal
gate, and of the twelve thousand glances, there is not
one turned in any other direction. The handsomest
woman upon earth could not obtain the alms of a
look at that moment.

I confess that for my part I felt my heart clutched,
as it were, by an invisible hand, my temples throbbed,
and cold and hot sweat broke out over me ; the emo-
tion I then felt was one of the fiercest I have ever
experienced.

A shrill blare of trumpets was heard, the two red
halves of the door were thrown open noisily, and the
bull dashed into the arena, welcomed by a tremendous
cheer. It was a superb animal, almost black, shining,
with a huge dewlap, square head, sharp, polished,
crescent-like horns, clean limbed, a restless tail, and
bearing between the two shoulders a bunch of ribbons
of the colours of its ganaderia^ held to the skin by

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

sharp points. It stopped for a second, breathed heavily
two or three times, dazzled by the daylight and aston-
ished by the tumult, then catching sight of the first
picador, he charged him furiously. The picador thus
attacked was Sevilla. I cannot resist the pleasure of
describing that famous Sevilla, who is really the ideal
picador. Imagine a man about thirty years of age,
handsome, high-bred looking, and as robust as Her-
cules, brown as a mulatto, with superb eyes and a face
recalling that which Titian gave to his Caesars. The
expression of jovial and disdainful serenity which
marks his features and his attitude has really some-
thing heroic about it. On that day he wore an
orange jacket embroidered and trimmed with silver,
which has remained imprinted on my mind with
ineffaceable accuracy. He lowered the point of his
lance, steadied himself, and bore the shock of the bull
so admirably that the furious brute staggered past him
bearing away a wound which before long rayed its
black skin with red streaks. It stopped, hesitating, for
a few moments, then charged with increased fury the
second picador, posted a little farther along.

Antonio Rodriguez drove in a great lance-thrust
which opened a second wound close to the first, for

~~ " ~ 96 "

MADRID

the shoulder alone must be struck; but the bull
charged upon him with lowered head, and plunged
his whole horn into the horse's belly. The chulos
hastened up, fluttering their capes, and the stupid
animal, attracted and distracted by this new bait, pur-
sued them at full speed ; but the chulos, setting foot
upon the ledge we have mentioned, sprang lightly over
the fence, leaving the animal greatly disconcerted at
seeing no one.

The thrust of the horn had ripped open the horse's
belly so that the entrails were running out and falling
almost to the ground. I thought the picador would
withdraw to take another horse. Not in the least.
He touched the animal's ear to see if the blow was
mortal. The horse was merely ripped up ; the
wound, though hideous to behold, might be healed.
The intestines were pushed back into the belly, two
or three stitches taken, and the poor brute served for
another charge. He spurred it and galloped off to take
his place further away.

The bull began to perceive that he had not much to
gain except lance-thrusts in the direction of the pica-
dores, and felt a desire to go back to the pasturage
grounds. Instead of charging without hesitation, he

7 97

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

started, after a short rush, to return to his querencia
with imperturbable obstinacy. The querencia is the
technical name for any corner of the arena which the
bull chooses for a refuge and to which it always re-
turns after the cog'tda^ as its attack is called, and after
the suerte^ or torero's attack, which is also called
d'lestro.

A cloud of chulos flashed before its eyes their capes
of brilliant colours ; one of them carried his insolence
so far as to place his rolled up mantle on the bull's
head. The maddened animal got rid, as well as it
could, of this unpleasant ornament, and tossed the
harmless piece of stuff, which it trampled with rage
when it fell to the ground. Profiting by this renewed
burst of wrath, a chulo began to tease it and to draw
it towards the picadores. Finding itself opposite its
enemies, the bull hesitated, then making up its mind,
charged Sevilla so fiercely that the horse rolled over,
for Sevilla's arm is a bronze buttress which nothing
can bend. Sevilla fell under the horse, which is the
best way to fall, for the man is thus protected from
being gored, and the body of the horse serves as a
shield. The chulos intervened and the horse was
got off with a ripped thigh ; Sevilla was picked up.

i: rl: 4: i: 4: db db 4: 4: :fc 4: i: :!: tl: ^ db tfc tfc ^ 4: :<: tfc tfc ^

M ADRI D

and he got back into the saddle with perfect coolness.
The steed of Antonio' Rodriguez, the other picador,
was less fortunate. It was gored so fiercely in the
chest that the horn went right in and disappeared com-
pletely in the wound. While the bull was trying to
disengage its head, caught in the bodv of the horse,
Antonio clutched with his hands the top of the fence,
which he leaped with the help of the chulos, for the
picadores, when thrown, weighed down by the metal
linings of their boots, can move scarcely more easily
than the knights of old, boxed up in their armour.

The poor horse, left to itself, could but stagger
across the arena as if it were intoxicated, stumbling
over its own entrails ; torrents of black blood flowed
from its wound and marked irregular zigzags upon
the sand which betrayed the unevenness of its gait.
Finally it fell near the tablas. It raised its head two
or three times, its blue eye already glazed, turning up
its lips white with foam, which showed its bare teeth ;
its tail faintly beat the ground, its hind legs were
convulsively drawn up and struck out in a last kick,
as if it had tried to break with its hard hoof the thick
skull of death. Its agony was scarcely over when the
muchachos on duty, seeing the bull busy elsewhere,

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

hastened to take off the saddle and bridle. The dead
horse remained stripped, lying on its side, its brown
silhouette showing against the sand. It was so thin,
so flattened out, that it might have been cut out of
black paper. I had already noticed at Montfaucon
the strangely fantastic forms which death gives to
horses. Its head, so noble, so cleanly shaped, mod-
elled and moulded by the terrible finger of nothingness,
seems to have been the dwelling of human thought ;
the mane which flows out, the tail which is spread out,
have something picturesque and poetic about them.
A dead horse is a corpse ; every other animal from
which life has departed is nothing but a dead brute.

I have spoken at length of the death of this horse
because it gave me the most painful sensation which
I felt at the bull-fight. It was not the only victim,
however; fourteen other horses were slain; one bull
alone killed five of them.

The picador returned with a fresh mount, and there
were several charges more or less fortunate, but the
bull was beginning to tire and its fury to abate. The
banderilleros arrived with their papered arrows, and
soon the bull's neck was adorned with a collar of cut
paper which the very efforts that he made to get rid

MADRID

of it drove in more firmly. A small banderillero
called Majaron, drove in the darts with great skill
and boldness, and sometimes even he performed
a cross-caper before withdrawing. Needless to say^ he
was loudly applauded. When the bull had in him
seven or eight bandcrillas, the irons of which tore
his head and the paper of which rattled In his ears, he
began to gallop here and there and to bellow horridly.
His black muzzle was wet with foam, and in his rage
he dealt such a fierce blow with his horns to one of
the doors that he threw it from the hinges. The car-
penters, who were watching his movements, immedi-
ately replaced the door. A chulo drew him in another
direction, but was pursued so fiercely that he scarcely
had time to leap the fence. The maddened and ex-
asperated bull made a prodigious effort and leaped the
fence. All those who were in the passage sprang
with marvellous speed into the arena, and the bull re-
entered by another gate, driven off with sticks and
hats by the spectators in the lowest row of benches.

The picadores withdrew, leaving the field to Juan
Pastor, the espada, who proceeded to pay his respects
to the ayuntamiento and asked leave to slay the bull.
The permission being granted, he threw away his

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

montera, by way of showing that he was going
to stake his all, and walked up deliberately to the
bull, concealing his sword in the red folds of the
fnuleta.

The espada waved rapidly the scarlet stuff, which
the bull blindly charged. A slight movement of the
body sufficed to avoid the rush of the fierce animal,
which soon charged again, striking fiercely at the
light stuff, which it pushed aside without being able
tQ pierce it. A favourable opportunity presenting itself,
the espada took up his position exactly opposite the
bull, waving his muleta in his left hand, and holding
his sword horizontally, the point on a level with the
animal's horns. It is difficult to render in words the
anguished curiosity, the frenzied tension excited by this
situation, which is worth all the dramas Shakespeare
ever wrote. In a few seconds more, one of the two
actors will be dead. Which shall it be, the man or the
bull ? There they are alone, facing each other ; the
man has no defensive armour, he is dressed as if for
a ball, in pumps and silk stockings, a pin could pierce
his satin jacket ; all he has is a bit of stuff and a frail
sword. All the material advantages in this duel are
on the side of the bull. He has terrible horns, sharp

MADRID

as poniards, immense impetus, the rage of a brute un-
conscious of danger; but the man has his sword and
his courage, and twelve thousand glances fixed upon
him ; beautiful women will applaud him presently
with their white hands.

The muleta was pulled aside, uncovering the mata-
dor's chest, the bull's horns were wlthm an inch of
it. I believed him lost. A silvery gleam flashed,
swift as thought, between the two crescents, and
the bull fell on his knees uttering a bellow of pain,
with the sword-hilt between his shoulders, like Saint
Hubert's stag which bore a crucifix between his
antlers, as he is represented in Albert Diirer's marvel-
lous engraving.

A whirlwind of applause swept over the amphi-
theatre; the nobility on the palcos, the middle classes
on the gradas cubiertas, the manolos and manolas on
the tendido, shouted and yelled, with true Southern
ardour and excitement, " Bueno ! hueno I viva el Bar-
hero ! viva ! "

The blow just dealt by the espada is, as a matter
of fact, very highly thought of and is called estocada
a vuela pies. The bull dies without losing a drop
of blood, which is the highest point of the art, and

103

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falling on his knees seems to acknowledge his adver-
sary's superiority. The dilettanti say that this stroke
was invented by Joaquin Rodriguez, a famous torero
of the last century.

When the bull is not slain at one blow, there
springs over the fence a mysterious being dressed in
black, who has heretofore taken no part in the fight.
It is the cachetero. He advances furtively, watches
the last convulsions of the animal, notices whether
it may still pick itself up, which does happen some-
times, and treacherously strikes it from behind with
a cylindrical poniard ending in a lancet, which cuts the
spinal cord and destroys life with the rapidity of
lightning. The correct place is behind the head,
a few inches from the parting of the horns.

The military band played at the death of the bull ;
one of the gates was opened, and four mules magnifi-
cently harnessed, all plumes, balls, and woollen tufts
and little red and yellow flags — the Spanish colours —
galloped into the arena. They were destined to re-
move the bodies, to which they are made fast by
a rope and a hook. The horses were first dragged out,
and then the bull. These four mules, with their
dazzling and sonorous equipment, dragging over the

104

MADRID

sand at mad speed all those bodies which but now
had galloped so well themselves, had a strange, wild
aspect which helped to diminish the gloom of their
functions. The attendant came up with a basketful
of earth, and scattered it over the pools of blood in
which the toreros might slip ; the picadores resumed
their places by the gate, the orchestra played a few
bars, and another bull dashed into the arena ; for
there are no intervals to this spectacle, nothing stops
it, not even the death of a torero. We have already said
that the substitutes are standing by, dressed and armed,
in case of accident.

We do not intend to relate in succession the slaying
of the eight bulls which were sacrificed on that day,
but we shall mention some variants and some inci-
dents. The bulls are not always very fierce ; some,
indeed, are very gentle and ask nothing better than
to lie quietly down in the shade ; one can tell by
their quiet, pleasant faces that they greatly prefer
pasturage to the circus. They turn their backs upon
the banderilleros, phlegmaticallv allow the chulos to
wave their many-coloured mantles before their nose.
Even the banderillas are not sufficient to dispel their
apathy. Recourse is then had to violent means, to

105

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the banderillas de fuego. They are a sort of fireworks
which light a itw^ minutes after they have been planted
in the shoulder of a cobarde (coward bull), and explode
with much scattering of sparks and loud reports.
This ingenious invention at once stuns, burns, and
terrifies the bull ; were he the coolest of bulls, he has
got to get mad. He indulges in a multitude of ex-
travagant leaps which one would not expect so heavy
an animal to be capable of; he bellows, foams, and
twists in every possible way to get rid of the irritating
firework which burns its ears and roasts its hide.

It is true that the banderillas de fuego are made use
of only as the very last resort ; the fight is, to a
certain extent, dishonoured if they have to be used;
but if the alcalde delays too long the wave of his
handkerchief, which is the signal, such a tumult arises
that he is compelled to give in. It is impossible to
describe the shouts and screams, the yells and the
stamping. Some call out, ^'^ Banderillas de fuego ! ''^
others, " Perros ! perros ! " (Dogs ! dogs !) The bull
is loaded with insults ; it is called a brigand, an assas-
sin, a thief; it is ofFered a place in the shade; innu-
merable jokes are fired at it, often very witty ones.
Soon a regular stick chorus helps out the shouting,

io6

MADRID

which is insufficient. The floor of the palcos cracks
and splits, and the painting falls from the ceilings in
white particles like snow mixed with dust. Exaspera-
tion is at its height. " Throw the alcalde to the fire
and to the dogs !"" howls the maddened crowd, shaking
its fist at the ayuntamiento's box. At last the wished-
for permission is granted, and peace is restored.

Often the bull is so cowardly that even the bander-
illas de fucgo are not sufficient. It returns to its
querencia and refuses to come in. Then shouts of
" Perros ! perros ! " are heard again. On a sign from
the alcalde, the dogs are brought in. They are splen-
did, handsome thorough-breds, and of remarkable beauty.
They charge straight at the bull, which may toss a
dozen, but cannot prevent one or two of the strongest
and boldest from fastening at last upon his ears. Once
they have got hold, they are like leeches ; you could
rip them open before they would let go. The bull
shakes its head, smashes them against the fences, —
all is useless. When that has lasted for some time
the espada or the cachetero drives his sword into
the victim's side. The bull staggers, its knees give
way, it falls to earth, and there it is despatched.
Sometimes also a sort of instrument called media luna

107

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

(half-moon) is used to hamstring it, and thus it is ren-
dered incapable of resistance ; then it is no longer a
fight, but a disgusting butchery. It often happens that
the matador misses his blow ; the sword strikes a bone
and springs back, or else it enters the throat and causes
the blood to flow freely, which is a serious blunder
under the laws of bull-fighting. If the espada does not
kill the animal with the second stroke he is hooted at,
hissed, and insulted ; for the Spanish public is impartial ;
it applauds the bull and the man according to their
respective merits. If the bull rips up a horse and
overthrows a man, " Bravo toro ! " if it is the man who
overthrows the bull, " Bravo torero!'''' but no coward-
ice is tolerated in man or brute. A poor devil who
was afraid to drive the banderillas into an extremely
fierce bull excited such a tumult that the alcalde had
to promise to send the man to prison, before order
could be restored.

In this same bull-fight Sevilla, who is an excellent
horseman, was greatly applauded under the following
circumstances. A bull of extraordinary strength got
his horns under the horse's belly, and throwing up his
head lifted the animal clean off the ground. Sevilla, in

that perilous position, did not even move in his saddle,
—

MADRID

did not lose his stirrups, and held his horse in so firmly
that it fell back on its four feet.

The fight had been a good one ; eight bulls
and fourteen horses killed, and a chulo slightly
wounded, — nothing better could have been asked for.
Each bull-fight brings in about twenty to twenty-five
thousand francs. The money is granted by the Queen
to the main hospital, where the wounded toreros are
most carefully tended. A priest and a doctor are ready
in one of the rooms of the Plaza de Toros, the one to
care for the soul, the other for the body. Formerly a
mass on behalf of the toreros was said during the bull-
fight ; I believe this is still the case. You see that
nothing is forgotten, and that the directors are careful
men. When the last bull is slain, everybody jumps
into the arena to look at it, and the spectators with-
draw, discussing the merits of the different suertes and
cogidas which have most impressed them.

And what about the women ? you ask. Are they
pretty ? I must own that I do not know. I have a
faint idea that there were some very pretty women
near me, but I could not swear to it.

Let us go to the Prado to settle this important
point.

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

When Madrid is spoken of, the very first things one
thinks of are the Prado and the Puerta del Sol. The
Prado, which has several avenues and sidewalks with a
driveway in the centre, is shaded by low trees with cut
tops. Each of them stands in a small, brick-edged
basin with gutters through which water is led to the
tree at the regular watering hours. But for this pre-
caution they would soon be destroyed by the dust and
burned up by the sun. The Prado begins at the Con-
vent of Atocha, passes in front of the Atocha and
Alcala Gates, and ends at the Recollet Gate ; but the
fashionable world keeps to a space bounded by the
fountain of Cybele on the one hand and that of Nep-
tune on the other, between the Alcala Gate and the
Calle San Geronimo. In that part there is a wide
space called el Salon., bordered with chairs like the
main walk of the Tuileries ; on either side of the
Salon there is an avenue which bears the name of
Paris. It is the rendezvous of the fashionable society
of Madrid, and as fashionable society is not usually
distinguished for fondness for the picturesque, the
dustiest, least shaded, least convenient place in the
whole promenade has been chosen. The crowd is
so great in this narrow space hemmed in between the

MAORI D

Salon and the driveway that it is often difficult to pull
one's handkerchief out of one's pocket ; you must walk
in step and follow your leader. The one reason which
can have led to the adoption of this place is that every
day you can see and bow to the people who drive past,
and it is always an honour to a foot-passenger to bow
to some one in a carriage. The equipages are not
very fine. Most of them are drawn by mules, whose
black coats, pot bellies, and pointed ears have a most
unpleasant effect. They look like mourning carriages,
driven behind a hearse. Even the Queen's carriage is
exceedingly simple and commonplace ; an Englishman
of wealth would unquestionably despise it. Of course
there are some exceptions, but they are rare. The
handsome Andaluslan saddle-horses on which the
Madrid fops show off are very handsome. There is
no animal more elegant, more noble-looking, and more
graceful than an Andalusian stallion, with its handsome
plaited mane, and its long, thick tail, which sweeps
the ground, its harness adorned with red tufts, its
straight head, its brilliant eye, and its neck curved like
a pigeon's breast. I saw one ridden by a lady, which
was pink (I mean the horse, not the lady), as pink as
a Bengal rose silvered over, of marvellous beauty.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

The appearance of the Prado is really most animated,
and it is one of the finest promenades in the world, not
for its position, which is exceedingly ordinary in spite
of all t'ue efforts which Charles III made to correct its
defects, but on account of the amazing crowd which
collects there every evening from half-past seven until
ten o'clock.

There are very few women's bonnets to be seen on
the Prado, save a few yellow ones (straw hats) ; man-
tillas alone are worn. So the Spanish mantilla does
actually exist ! It is made either of black or of white
lace, more usually of black, and it is worn behind the
head above the comb. A few flowers placed by the
temple complete this head-dress, which is the most
delightful that can be imagined. A woman who wears
the mantilla must be as ugly as the three theological
virtues if she cannot manage to appear pretty. Un-
fortunately, that is the only portion of the Spanish
costume which has been preserved ; the rest is in the
French fashion. The folds of the mantilla wave over
a shawl, an odious shawl, and the shawl itself is worn
over a dress of some sort of stuff which in no wise re-
calls the Spanish beauties. The former costume was
so thoroughly appropriate to the type of beauty, and

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MADRID

especially to the habits, of the Spanish women, that it is
really the only one possible for them. The fan which
they carry somewhat corrects their Parisian aspirations;
a woman without a fan is a thing I have not seen in this
blessed country ; I have seen some who wore satin shoes
without any stockings, but they had a fan. They carry
a fan everywhere, even to church, where you meet with
groups of women of all ages, kneeling, or squatting on
their heels, praying and fanning most fervently, with
Spanish signs of the cross much more complicated than
ours, executed by them with a precision and a rapidity
worthy of a Prussian soldier. The way to use a fan
is wholly unknown in France. Spanish women excel
in it. Their fingers open, close, and turn the fan so
quickly, so lightly that a prestidigitator could not sur-
pass them. Some of the richer ladies have collections
of fans worth a great deal of money. We saw one
which contained more than a hundred fans in different
styles ; they had come from every country and belonged
to all times ; they were in ivory, tortoise-shell, sandal-
wood ; they were spangled ; they were adorned with
water-colours of the time of Louis XIV and Louis
XV ; there were some in Japanese and Chinese rice-
paper ; several were studded with rubies, diamonds, and

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

other precious gems. For a pretty woman this is a
luxury in good taste and a charming fad. The fans as
they close and open make a Jittle ruffling sound which,
repeated more than a thousand times a minute, sends
its peculiar note through the vague rumour and strikes
a French ear as strange. When a woman meets an
acquaintance, she makes a sign with her fan, and drops,
as she goes by, the word agur. And now let us come
to the Spanish beauties.

The Spanish type, as we understand it in France,
does not exist in Spain, — at least I have not yet met
with it. Usually when we speak of seiloras and man-
tillas, we think of a long, pale, oval face, with great
black eyes, velvety eyebrows; of a delicate, somewhat
arched nose ; lips red like pomegranates, and over all a
warm, golden tone which bears out the line of the
song, " She is golden as an orange." That type is
Arab or Moorish, not Spanish. The Madrilenas are
charming in the fullest sense of the word. Three out
of four are pretty, but they are in no wise such as we
fancy them. They are short, dainty, well shaped,
with small feet, handsome figures, and fairly full busts ;
but they are very white-skinned, their features small
and irregular, and their cherry lips recalling exactly cer-

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MADRID

tain portraits of the time of the Regency. Many of
them have light-brown hair, and you cannot walk up
and down the Prado without meeting seven or eight
fair-haired women of all degrees of fairness, from the
palest blond to the most vehement red and the auburn
of a Charles V. It is a mistake to think there are
no fair women in Spain. Blue eyes arc numerous,
but are not thought so much of as black.

At first we found it somewhat difficult to reconcile
ourselves to seeing women in low-necked dresses as if
going to a ball, bare-armed, with satin slippers, and
flowers in their hair and fan in hand, walking alone in
a public place ; for here ladies do not take a man's arm
unless he is their husband or a near relative. Their
escort walks by them, at least so long as it is day, for
after nightfall the etiquette is less rigorous in this
respect, especially for strangers who are not accustomed
to it.

We had heard the manolas of Madrid very highly
spoken of, but the manola as a type has disappeared,
just as the grhette of Paris and the trasteverina of
Rome ; she still exists, but she has lost her old charac-
teristics ; she no longer wears her striking and pictu-
resque costume; ignoble cotton prints have taken the

115

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

place of the brilliant skirts embroidered in amazing
designs ; the hideous kid shoe has driven out the satin
slipper, and, horrible to relate, the gown is fully two
fingers longer. Formerly the manolas enliv^ened the
aspect of the Prado with their quick gait and their
striking costume, but it is now difficult to distinguish
them from the wives of tradesmen and women of the
lower middle class. I have sought for a thorough-bred
manola in every corner of Madrid. I looked for her
at the bull-fight, in the Delicias, at the Nuevo Recreo,
at the festival of Saint Anthony, and I have only
once come across a complete one. Once while travers-
ing the Rastro quarter, after having stepped over a great
number of rascals sleeping on the ground in rags, I
found myself in a deserted lane, and there, for the first
and last time, I beheld the wished-for manola. She
was a tall, well made girl, some twenty-four years of
age, which is the extreme age to which manolas and
grisettes can attain. She had a bronzed complexion, a
steady, sad look, somewhat thick lips, and something of
African in the outline of her face. The huge plait of
her hair, so black that it showed blue, tressed like the
handle of a basket, was twisted around her head and
was kept in place by a tall comb. Bunches of coral

' ^76

MADRID

beads hung/rom her ears, her brown neck was adorned
with a necklace of the same material. A black velvet
mantilla covered her head and shoulders ; her skirt, as
short as that of the girls of Berne, was of embroidered
cloth, and showed strong, well-made legs clad in black
silk stockings; her shoes were the old-fashioned satin
shoes ; a red fan fluttered like' a vermilion butterfly in
her hands covered with silver rings. The last of the
manolas turned the corner of the lane and disappeared
from my sight, leaving me amazed at having seen once
again walking in the real, living world, an opera dress.
I also saw at the Prado some Santander pasiegas in their
national costume. These pasiegas are said to be the
best nurses in Spain, and their fondness for the children
confided to them has become proverbial, just as in
France the probity of the Auvergnat is proverbial.
They wear a red cloth skirt with enormous heavy folds
edged with a broad braid, a bodice of black velvet, also
trimmed with gold, and by way of head-dress, a bandana
in brilliant colours with numerous silver ornaments and
other barbaric adornments. These women are very
handsome, and have a very striking look of force
and grandeur. The habit of cradling children in
their arms makes them hold themselves In a way

117

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

which shows ofF to good effect their handsome figures.
To have a pasiega in her national costume is a sort
of luxury comparable to that of a Klepht behind one's
carriage.

I have not spoken of the costumes of the men, but
if you will look into the fashion-plates of six months
ago, you will have a perfect idea of them.

There exists in Madrid a trade which is quite un-
known in Paris, — that of water-sellers. Their stock
in trade consists of a cantaro of white earthenware, a
small basket of reeds or tin, which contains two or
three glasses, a few azucarillos, which are sticks of
porous caramel, and sometimes a couple of oranges
or limes. Others have small breakers covered with
foliage, which they carry on their back ; a iev^ even,
along the Prado, for instance, have stalls surmounted
with brass figures of Fame, and flags, which in no
respect yield to the splendours of the liquorice-water
sellers of Paris. These water-sellers are usually young
Galician lads in snuff-coloured jackets, knee-breeches,
and pointed hats. Some are Valencianos with white
linen trousers, a piece of stuff laid over their shoulder,
and blue-edged alpargatas. A {e\v women and girls, in
no costume to speak of, are also found in this business.

•:?5:/j

•i««4> •4« r|« riv rf* •!« rl« rA« ^ .i« .I* ^ «i« fl« ^ •!« «i* rl« «j« ^ tETSTtl?

MADRID

According to their sex the water-sellers are called
aguadores o\ aguadoras. You hear all over the town
their sharp call, " Water, water ; who wants water ?
Iced water, cool as snow ! " You hear this sort of
thing from five in the morning till ten at night.
These calls suggested to Breton de los Herreros a
song called " Aguadora," which was vastly popular
all through Spain.

The Madrid thirst is really amazing. All the water
of the fountains and all the snows of the Guadarrama
Mountains would not suffice to slake it. The poor
Manzanares and the dried-up urn of its naiads has
been often laughed at, but I would like to know what
any other river would look like in a city that is a prey
to such a thirst. The Manzanares is drunk up at its
source ; the aguadores carefully watch for the least
drop of water which they can find between its banks,
and carry it off in their cantaros and their fountains ;
washerwomen wash the clothes with sand, and in the
very centre of the river bed there is not enough water
for a Mohammedan to perform his ablutions. A glass
of water is sold for a cuarto (about a farthing). Next
to water, what Madrid most needs is a light for its
cigarette, and so the call, " Fuego^ fuego ! " is heard

i_i9 „_____

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

on all hands, and constantly mingles with the call,
" Agua^ agua ! " It is an endless fight between the
two elements, each trying to make the most noise. A
fire more permanent than that of Vesta is carried by
youngsters in small cups full of coal and fine ashes,
provided with a handle to save burning one's fingers.

It is now half-past nine; the Prado is getting empty,
and the crowd is moving in the direction of the cafes
and botillerias which border the great Calle de Alcala
the other streets.

The Madrid cafes strike us, who are accustomed to
the brilliant, fairy-like luxury of the Paris cafes, as
regular twenty-fifth-rate public houses, while their
decoration recalls vividly the caravans in which are
exhibited bearded women and living sirens, but the
lack of luxury is fully compensated for by the excel-
lence and the variety of the refreshments served. We
must confess that Paris, so superior in everything else,
is behindhand in this respect ; our art is, in this
matter, in its infancy. The most famous cafes are,
the Bolsa at the corner of Carretas Street ; the Nuevo,
where the exaltados meet ; another, the name of which
I have forgotten, which is the usual meeting-place of
the Moderates, who are called Cangrejos or Crayfish ;

MADRID

the Levante, close to the Puerta del Sol, I do not
mean that the others are not good, but the above-men-
tioned are the most frequented. We must not forget
either the Cafe del Principe, alongside of the theatre
which bears the same name, and which is the usual
rendezvous of artists and literary men.

Let us enter the Bolsa, which is adorned with small
mirrors cut out on their lower surface so as to exhibit
designs like those seen upon certain German glasses.
Here is the list of bebidas heladas^ of sherbets and
quesitos. The bebida helada^ or iced drink, is served
in large or small glasses, and is to be had in great
variety. There is the narajije (orange), I'lmon (lemon),
fresa (strawberry), and guindas (cherry). It is a sort
of liquid ice, or snowy puree of most exquisite taste.
The bebida de almendra blanca (white almonds) is a
delightful drink unknown in France. The Madrid
cafe also serves you with iced milk, half strawberry or
cherry, which, while the body is being cooked in the
torrid zone, makes your throat enjoy all the snows and
cold of Greenland. During the day, when the ices
are not yet ready, you can have agraz^ a drink made
of green grapes and served in very long-necked bottles;
— the slightly acid taste of the agraz is exceedingly

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

pleasant. Or you can drink a bottle of cerve%a de
Santa Barbara con limon^ but this takes some little
time to prepare. First are brought a basin and a large
spoon like a punch-ladle, then the waiter approaches,
bearing the wire-fastened bottle, which he uncorks
with infinite precaution, and the beer is poured into
the basin, into which has been previously put a de-
canter full of lemonade ; the mixture is then stirred
with the ladle, the glass is filled, and the drink is
ready. If you do not care for this combination, all
you have to do is to go into one of the orchaterias de
chufas^ usually kept by Valencians. The chufa is a
small berry, a sort of almond, which grows in the
neighbourhood of Valencia, which is roasted and
ground, and of which a drink is made which is
exquisite, especially when mixed with snow. This is
an extremely refreshing drink.

To wind up what we have to say about the cafes,
let us add that the sherbets differ from the French ones
in being thicker. The quesito is a small, hard ice-
cream moulded in the shape of a cheese. There are
all sorts of them, apricot, pine-apple, orange, just as
in Paris. Chocolate, coffee, and other spu?nas are also
served. These are varieties of whipped cream, iced

MADRID

and exceedingly light, sometimes powdered with very
finely groulid cinnamon, and served with barquilos or
rolled wafers, through which you take your bebida as
through a siphon, drawing it in slowly by one of the
ends, — a little bit ot refinement which enables you to
enjoy longer the coolness of the drink. Coffee is not
served in cups, but in glasses. For the matter of that,
it is little used. These details may appear to you
somewhat fastidious, but if you were suffering, as we
are, from a heat of eighty degrees and more you would
consider them most interesting.

Many more women are to be seen in the Madrid
cafes than in the Paris ones, although cigarettes, and
even Havana cigars are smoked there. The news-
papers most frequently met with are the Eco del
Comerc'io^ the Nacional and the Diar'io^ which tell you
of the festivals of the day, the hours of masses and
sermons, the temperature, lost dogs, young peasant-
women who are looking for positions as nurses, criadas
who are looking for a situation, etc., etc.

But it is striking eleven, it Is time for us to with-
draw. There are but a very {ew belated passers-by in
the Calle de Alcala. The serenos^ with their lanterns
at the end of a pike and their stone-gray cloaks and

123

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

their cadenced cry, are alone seen in the streets. No
sound is heard but that of a choir of crickets singing
together, in their little cages adorned with glasswork,
their dissyllabic complaint. The Madrid people are
very fond of crickets ; every house has one suspended
from the vi^indow in a miniature cage of wood or wire.
They are also strangely fond of quails, which are kept
in open-worked willow baskets, and which pleasantly
vary, with their everlasting />/«, piu, piu, the creaky
creak of the crickets.

The Puerta del Sol is not, as might be imagined, a
gate, but a church facade painted pink and adorned
with a dial lighted at night, and with a great sun with
golden beams, whence it derives it name. In front of
the church there is a sort of a square, traversed in its
greater length by the Calle de Alcala, and crossed by
the Calle de Carretas and de Montera. The Post
Office, a great square building, faces on the square.
The Puerta del Sol is the rendezvous of the idlers of
the city, and they appear to be numerous, for early in
the morning the crowd is dense there.

Politics form the general subject of conversation.
The theatre of war is in every one's mind, and more
strategy is devised at the Puerta del Sol than on all

124

M ADRI D

the fields of battle and in all the campaigns in the
world. Formerly, and even to-day, the nobility would
go into the shops near the Puerta del Sol, have a chair
brought out, and remain there the greater portion of
the day, talking with their clients, to the great dis-
satisfaction of the tradesman, grieved at such a mark
of familiarity.

Now let us wander at haphazard through the city,
for chance is our best guide ; the more so that Madrid
does not possess many architectural attractions, and
one street is as interesting as another.

The houses of Madrid are built of laths and brick,
and of clay, except the door-posts, the binding-courses,
and the bearing-pieces, which are sometimes of blue
or gray granite ; the whole wall being carefully lined
and painted in rather fantastic colours, apple-green,
ash-blue, light-fawn, canary-yellow, rose-pink and
other more or less anacreontic shades. The frame-
work of the windows is ornamented with sham archi-
tectural work, numberless volutes, spirals, cupids, and
flower-pots, and provided with Venetian blinds with
broad white and blue stripes, or mats which are kept
watered for the sake of the humidity and the cool-
ness. Wholly modern houses are simply whitewashed

125

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

or tinted like Paris ones. The projecting balconies
and miradores somewhat break the monotony of
straight lines and diversify the naturally flat aspect
of the buildings, every relief on which is painted and
treated in the style of theatre decorations. Light up
all this with a brilliant sunshine, place here and there
in these streets filled with light a few long-veiled
senoras who hold their open fan against their cheek
by way of a parasol, a few tanned, wrinkled beggars
draped in tinder-coloured rags, a few Bedouin-looking,
half-naked Valencianos ; erect among the roofs the
little, dwarf cupolas, the bulging, leaden-ball-topped
spires of a church or a convent, — and you have a
rather curious prospect which would prove to you that
you are no longer on the rue Lafitte, and that you have
really left the boulevard asphalt, even if you had not
already been convinced of the fact by the sharp pebbles
of the Madrid pavements which cut your feet,

A really striking thing is the frequent repetition of
the inscription " "Juego de villar^'' which recurs every
twenty yards. Lest the reader should imagine there is
anything mysterious in these three words, I hasten to
translate them. They simply mean " Billiards." I
cannot see what is the use of so many billiards. Next

^^6

MAORI D

to juegos de villar, the most frequent inscription is
despacho de vino (wine shop). In these shops are sold
Val-de-penas and other good wines. The confiteriai
and pastelerias are also very numerous and prettily
decorated. Spanish preserves deserve particular men-
tion. Those known as angel's hair are exquisite.
Pastry is also as good as it can he in a country which
has no butter, or at least, where it is so costly and so
poor that it cannot well be used. It is much of the
sort that we call fancy biscuits.

All the inscriptions are written in abbreviated char-
acters, with the letters interlaced one in another, mak-
ing it therefore difficult at first for strangers, who are
great readers of signs, to make them out.

The houses are uncommonly large and commodious,
the ceilings are high, and space is nowhere economised ;
some of the staircases here would hold a whole Paris
house. Long suites of rooms have to be traversed
before reaching the really inhabited part; for all these
rooms are furnished only with a coat of white-wash or
a flat yellow or blue tint, with coloured lines and panels
imitating wood-work. Smoky and blackened paintings
representing the beheading or the ripping up of some
martyr — favourite subjects of the Spanish painters —

127

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

are hung upon the walls, most of the paintings being
unframed and wrinkled. Wooden floors are unknown
in Spain ; at least, I have never seen any. All the
rooms are floored with bricks, but as the bricks are
covered with rush mattings in winter and reed mats in
summer, the inconvenience is greatly diminished. The
mats are plaited with much taste ; the natives of the
Philippines or the Sandwich Islands could not do
better. There are three things which are for me an
accurate test of the state of civilisation of a country :
its pottery, the art of plaiting either willow or straw,
and the method of harnessing draught animals. If the
pottery is fine, of good shape, as correct as antique
pottery, with the natural tone of the yellow or red
clay ; if the baskets and mats are fine and skilfully
woven and adorned with coloured arabesques well
chosen ; if the harness is embroidered, pinked, adorned
with bells, tufts of wool and designs of the finest kind,
you may be quite sure that the nation is still primitive
and very close to a state of nature, for civilised people
do not know how to make a pot, a mat, or a harness.
At this very moment I have in front of me, hanging
from a pillar by a string, a jarra in which my drinking
water is cooling. It is an earthen pot worth twelve

i^8

MADRID

cuartos, that is, about three pence. The design is
exquisite, and I know nothing to compare with it
next to Etruscan. The top, which flares, forms a
four-leaved clover slightly hollowed, so that the water
can pour out in whichever way the vase is turned : the
handles, ribbed, with a small moulding, run with per-
fect elegance into the neck and sides, which are of
most satisfactory outline. Fashionable people prefer
to these charming vases hideous pot-bellied, paunchv,
dwarfed English pots, covered with a thick layer of
glaze, which might be easily mistaken for jack-boots
polished white. But talking of pots and potteries, we
have got a pretty long way from the description of the
house. We had better return to it without delav.

The little furniture which is to be met with in
Spanish houses is in hideous taste, and recalls the
Messidor and the Pyramid styles. The Empire style
flourishes here in all its integrity ; you come across
mahogany pilasters, ending in sphinxes' heads in green
bronze, or Pompeian wreaths, which have long since
disappeared from the civilised world. There is not
a single piece of carved wood furniture, not a single
table inlaid in mother of pearl, not a single lacquered
cabinet, — nothing. Old Spain has entirely disap-

9 129

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

peared ; there is nothing left of it but a few Persian
carpets and a few damask curtains. On the other
hand, there is an amazing abundance of straw chairs
and sofas; the walls are painted to represent columns
or cornices, or daubed all over in distemper ; on the
tables and whatnots are placed little china or porcelain
figures representing troubadours and other equally
ingenious subjects, — which, however, are entirely ob-
solete,— poodles made of spun glass, electroplate
candlesticks with tapers, and a hundred other magnifi-
cent things which it would take too long to describe,
— even if I had not said enough about them. I have
not the courage to speak of the hideous coloured
engravings which pretend, though wrongly, to embel-
lish the walls. There may be some exceptions, but
they are not numerous. Do not imagine that the
dwellings of people of the higher classes are furnished
with greater taste or richness ; these descriptions,
which are scrupulously exact, apply to the houses
of people who keep carriages and eight or ten
servants.

The blinds are always closed, the shutters half shut,
so that the rooms are filled with a sort of dim light
which you have to become accustomed to in order

130

MADRID

to discern objects, especially when you come in from
outside. The people in the room can see perfectly
well, but those who enter are blind for eight or ten-
minutes, especially when one of the anterooms is
lighted. It is said that skilful female mathematicians
have ascertained by calculation that this optical combi-
nation results in perfect security for an intimate tete-
a-tete in an apartment thus arranged.

The heat in Madrid is excessive. It comes on
suddenly without the transition of spring, so that in
speaking of the temperature of Madrid, people say
that it has three months of winter and nine months
of hell. It is impossible to protect one's self from this
rain of fire save by keeping in low rooms which
are almost wholly darkened and in which coolness
is kept up by continuous watering. This need of
coolness has given rise to the use of bucaros^ a
quaint and wild refinement which would not be
pleasant to our fashionable French ladies, but which
strikes the handsome Spanish women as in the very
best taste.

Bucaros are a sort of pots of American red earth,
very much like that of which the bowls of Turkish
pipes are made. They are to be had in all sorts of

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

shapes and sizes ; some are adorned with gilt lines and
coarsely painted flowers scattered over the surface.
As they are no longer made in America, bucaros will
become rare, and in a few years will be as hard to
find as old Sevres china ; — then everybody will have
them.

Seven or eight bucaros are placed on the marble
tops of tables or in corners. They are then filled
with water, and you sit down on the sofa to wait the
effect which they produce and to enjoy the pleasure
thereof with suitable tranquillity. The clay takes
on a darker tint, the bucaros begin to sweat and
to shed a perfume much resembling the odour of wet
plaster or of a damp cellar which has been shut up
for a long time. The bucaros perspire so abundantly
that in an hour's time half the water is evaporated.
What is left is as cold as ice and has a well or
cistern taste which is rather disagreeable, but which
connoisseurs consider delicious. Half a dozen bu-
caros are sufficient to make the air in a parlor so
humid that you feel it as you enter. It is a sort of
cold vapour bath. Not content with breathing its per-
fume and drinking the water, some people chew small
fragments of the bucaros and then swallow them.

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MADRID

I have been to some evening parties or tertulias.
There is nothing noteworthy about them. People
dance to the accompaniment of pianos as they do in
France, but in a still more modern and lamentable
fashion, if that be possible. I cannot understand why
people who dance so little should not make up their
minds not to dance at all ; it would be simpler and
quite as amusing. The fear of being accused of indulg-
ing in the bolero, fandango, or cachucha makes women
perfectly motionless. Their costume is very simple
in comparison with that of the men, who are always
dressed like fashion-plates. I noticed the same thing
at the palace de Villa Hermosa, at the performance
for the benefit of foundlings, where were the Queen
Mother and the voung Queen, and all the great world
of Madrid. Ladies who were duchesses twice over
and marchionesses four times over, wore dresses which
a milliner going to spend the evening with a seam-
stress in Paris would absolutely contemn. They have
forgotten how to dress in the Spanish fashion, and
they have not yet learned how to dress in the French,
and if they were not uncommonly pretty, they would
often run the risk of being ridiculous. Once only,
at a ball, did I see a lady wearing a rose satin waist

133

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

adorned with five or six rows of black lace, like that
of Fanny Elssler in the " Devil on Two Sticks," —
but she had been to Paris, where the Spanish costume
had been revealed to her.

The tertulias are not very costly for the entertainers.
Refreshments are conspicuous by their absence ; there
is neither tea, nor ices, nor punch ; only, on a table
in an outer room are ranged a dozen glasses of water,
perfectly limpid, with a plate of azucarillos ; but it
would be thought indiscreet and gluttonous if any one
were to be so luxurious as to put sugar in the water.
This is the way in the richest houses, not through
miserliness, but simply because it is the custom ;
besides, the hermit-like sobriety of the Spaniards is
quite satisfied with this regimen.

As for manners, It Is not in six weeks that one can
understand the character of a people and the customs
of society ; novelty gives you Impressions which a
longer stay is apt to efface. It seemed to me the
women in Spain enjoyed greater liberty than else-
where ; the behaviour of men in their presence seemed
to me very mild and submissive. They pay their
duties with scrupulous exactitude and punctuality, and
express their passion by verses In all metres, rimed,

MADRID

assonanced, -5«^//5x, and others. From the moment
that they have placed their heart at the feet of a
beauty, they may no longer dance except with great-
grandmothers ; they may talk only with ladies of fifty
of unquestioned ugliness ; they may no longer pay
visits to houses where there is any young woman. A
most assiduous visitor disappears suddenly, and returns
in six months or a year; his mistress had forbidden
him to go to that house ; he is received just as if he had
called the day before ; it is perfectly understood. So
far as may be judged at first sight, Spanish women are
not capricious in love, and the connections they form
often last several years.

The Teatro del Principe is rather conveniently
arranged. Dramas, saynetes and intermedes are played
there. I saw the performance of a play by Don
Antonio Gil y Zarate, " Don Carlos el Heschizado,"
composed quite in the Shakespearean style. Don
Carlos is very like Louis XIII in "Marion de Lorme,"
and the prison scene with the monk is a copy of the
visit of Claude Frollo to Esmeralda in the cell where
she is awaiting death. Fairy pieces with dances and
spectacular entertainments are also performed at this
theatre. I have seen given, under the title of " La

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Pata de Cabra " an adaptation of " The Sheep's
Trotter," formerly played at the Odeon. The ballet
part was remarkably poor. The best dancers were
not as good as the mere substitutes at the Opera; on
the other hand, the supernumeraries displayed extraor-
dinary intelligence ; the dance of the Cyclops was
performed with remarkable precision and accuracy.
As for the national dance, it does not exist. At
Vitoria and Burgos and Valladolid we were told that
the good dancers were in Madrid ; in Madrid we were
told that the real dancers of the cachucha were to be
found only in Andalusia, at Seville ; but we are very
much afraid that to have Spanish dances we shall have
to go back to Fanny Elssler and the Noblet sisters.
Dolores Serra, who made such a sensation in Paris,
where we were among the first to draw attention to
the passionate boldness, the voluptuous suppleness, and
the sparkling grace which characterised her dancing,
has appeared several times on the Madrid stage with-
out producing the least effect, so completely has the
feeling for and the understanding of the old national
dances disappeared from Spain. When the jota ara-
gonesa^ or the bolero is performed, all the best people
rise and go out ; the strangers and the rabble, in

136

MADRID

whom the poetic instinct always lasts longer, alone
remain.

The Queen's palace is a large, very square and
solid building, of fine dressed stone, with a great many
windows, an equal number of doors, and a great many
Ionic columns, Doric pilasters, — in a word, all that
goes to make up a monument of bad taste. The vast
terraces which support it and the snow-clad mountains
of Guadarrama against which it stands out relieve the
monotony and vulgarity of its outline. Velasquez,
Maella, Bayeu, and Tiepolo have painted fine ceilings
in more or less allegorical taste. The great staircase
is very handsome, and Napoleon preferred it to that of
Versailles.

The Parliament house is adorned with a mixture of
Paestum columns and periwigged lions in most abom-
inable taste ; I do not believe that good laws can pos-
sibly be passed in the midst of such architecture.
Near the Parliament House rises in the middle of the
square a bronze statue of Miguel Cervantes. No
doubt it is praiseworthy to erect a statue to the im-
mortal author of Don Quixote, but they ought to ha\'e
made it a good deal better.

The monument to the victims of the Dos de Mayo

137

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

is situated on the Prado not far from the Museum of
Fine Arts. On catching sight of it, for a moment I
fancied I was back on the Place de la Concorde in
Paris, and I saw in a strange mirage the venerable
obelisk of Luxor, which until now I had not suspected
of travelling around. It is a sort of small pillar of gray
granite surmounted by an obelisk of reddish granite,
very similar in tone to that of the Egyptian needle.
The effect is rather fine and has a certain venerable
gravity. It is to be regretted that the obelisk is not
in one piece. The inscriptions in honour of the
victims are engraved in gold lettering on the sides of
the pedestal. The Dos de Mayo is a heroic and glori-
ous episode which the Spaniards dwell on rather too
much ; engravings and pictures of it are to be met
with everywhere.

The Armeria does not come up to one's anticipa-
tions. The Artillery Museum in Paris is far richer
and more complete. The Madrid Armeria contains
very ^^\w complete suits of armour composed of pieces
of the same epoch. There are helmets older or later
than the breastplates upon which they are placed.
The reason given for this discrepancy is that when
the French invasion occurred, these curious relics

^^8

M A D R I D

were concealed in attics, and that there they were
mixed up without its being possible to collect them
afterwards and to sort them with anything like accu-
racy. So no trust is to be placed in the statements of
the custodians. We were shown, as being the coach
of Mad Joan, the mother of Charles V, a carriage of
carved wood admirably wrought, which evidently was
not earlier than the time of Louis XIV. The carriage
of Charles V, with its leather cushions and curtains,
was much more likely to be authentic. There are
very few Moorish weapons, — two or three old buck-
lers and a few yataghans. The most interesting things
are the embroidered saddles starred with gold and
silver, covered with steel, but nothing certain is known
as to the date of their manufacture or as to their
original owners. The English admire greatly a sort
of triumphal cab in wrought iron presented to
Ferdinand in 1823 or 1824.

We may mention as we pass on a few fountains
in a most corrupt, but rather amusing rococo style ;
the Toledo Bridge, in very bad taste, very rich and very
much ornamented, with perfume-burners, fruit, and
foliage ; a few curiously painted churches surmounted
with Muscovite steeples; and then go on to the Buen

139

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Retiro, the royal residence, situated at a short distance
from the Prado. We Frenchmen, who possess Ver-
sailles and Saint Cloud, and who possessed Marly, are
rather difficult to please in the way of royal residences.
The Buen Retiro appears to be the realisation of a
well-to-do grocer's dream. It has a garden filled with
ordinary, but showy flowers ; small basins adorned
with rockery and vermiculated stones, with jets of
water, in the style of those seen in the shop windows
of provision dealers; ponds of greenish water on which
float wooden swans painted white and varnished, and
other wonders in most mediocre taste. The natives
go into ecstasies in front of a rustic pavilion built of
round logs, the interior of which has the pretension of
being Hindoo in character. The artless patriarchal
Turkish garden with its kiosk, the windows of which
are glazed with coloured glass and through which you
see blue, red, or green landscapes, is far superior in the
way of taste and magnificence. There is, above all, a
certain chalet which is the most ridiculous and comical
thing imaginable. Near the chalet is a stable, pro-
vided with a stuffed goat and kid, and a sow of gray
stone which is suckling little pigs of the same material.
A short distance farther the guide steps aside, myste-

140

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M A D R I D

riously opens a door, and when he calls you and at
last permits 'you to come in you hear a dull sound
of wheels and counterweights, and you find yourself
in the presence of hideous automata which are churn-
ing butter, spinning, or rocking with their wooden
feet wooden children laid in carved cradles. In
the next room is the grandfather, who is ill in
bed ; his potion is near him on the table. This is
an exact summary of the chief splendours of the
Retiro. A fine bronze equestrian statue of Philip V,
which in general appearance resembles the statue of
the Place des Victoires, somewhat atones for all this
wretchedness.

The Madrid Museum, which it would take a whole
volume to describe, is exceedingly rich. There is an
abundance of Titians, Raphaels, Veroneses, Rubens,
Velasquez, Riberas, and Murillos. The paintings are
remarkably well lighted, and the architecture, especially
in the interior, is in rather good style. The facade on
the Prado is in bad taste, but on the whole the build-
ing does honour to the architect, Villa Nueva, who
drew the plans. Having visited the Museum, you
ought to go next to the Natural History' Museum to
see the mastodon or Dinotherium gigantceum^ a marvel-

141

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

lous fossil with bones like bars of brass, which must be
at the very least the behemoth of the Bible ; a nugget
of virgin gold of the weight of sixteen pounds,
Chinese gongs, the sound of which, no matter what
people say, is very much like that of a copper stewpan
when you kick it, and a series of pamtings representing
all the varieties which can result from the crossing of
the white, black, and copper-coloured races. Do not
forget either to see at the Academy three admirable
paintings by Murillo, the Foundation of Santa Maria
Maggiore (two different subjects), and Saint Elizabeth
of Hungary healing the sick ; two or three splendid
Riberas ; a Burial by el Greco, some portions of which
are worthy of Titian ; a fantastic sketch also by el
Greco, representing monks performing penance, which
surpasses the most mysteriously gloomy conceptions of
Lewis or of Anne RadclifFe ; and a charming woman
in Spanish costume, lying on a divan, painted by good
old Goya, the national painter above all others, who
seems to have come into this world on purpose to col-
lect the last traces of the national customs which are
about to disappear. Francisco Goya y Lucientes is
unmistakably the descendant of Velasquez. After
him come Aparicio and Lopez, — the decadence is

142

M A D I^ 1 D
complete, the cycle of art is closed. To whom shall
it be given to reopen it ?

Goya, a strange painter and a singular genius ! No
man was ever more markedly original, no Spanish
artist was ever more thoroughly local. A sketch by
Goya, four touches of the graver in a cloud of aqua
tinta, tells you more about the manners of the country
than the longest description. Goya seems to belong
to the finest periods of art by his adventurous air, his
force, and his numberless talents, and yet he is almost
a contemporary, for he died at Bordeaux in 1828.

The old Spanish art was buried with Goya, as was
the forever vanished world of toreros, majos, monks,
smugglers, robbers, alguaciles, and witches — all the
local colour of the Peninsula. He came just in time
to collect and immortalise it. He thought he was
merely drawing caprices ; what he drew was the por-
trait and the history of old Spain, though he believed
he was serving the new ideas and beliefs. Soon his
caricatures will have become historical monuments.

143

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

U; 4; 4.^4; 4; 4. 4^ 4; 4; 4* 4.4.:!; 4; 4; 4; 4;^4; 4.^^^

THE ESCORIAL

THE Escorial is situated seven or eight leagues
from Madrid, not far from the Guadarrama, at
the foot of a mountain chain. It is impossible to im-
agine anything more barren and desolate than the dis-
trict in which it lies. Not a tree, not a house is there
on it; great overlapping slopes, dry ravines, known to
be torrent beds by the bridges which span them here
and there, and clumps of blue mountains snow-capped
or cloud-laden. The landscape, nevertheless, does not
lack grandeur; the absence of vegetation imparts
extraordinary seventy and clearness to its lines. The
farther one goes from Adadrid, the larger do the stones
which are scattered over the countryside become, ap-
proaching almost to the dimensions of rocks. They
are of a grayish blue, and strewing the rough soil they
look like the warts upon the back of a hundred-year-
old crocodile. They show like innumerable quaint
towers against the silhouette of the hills, which them-
selves resemble the ruins of gigantic buildings. About

144

THE ESCORIAL

half-way out stands, at the top of a rather sharp hill, a
wretched, lonely house, the only one to be met with
on a stretch of twenty-four miles. Opposite to it is a
spring which yields, drop by drop, clear, ice-cold
water. You drink as many glasses of that water as
you find, the mules are breathed, and then the coach
starts again. Soon afterwards you perceive, standing out
against the hazy background of the mountains, lighted
up by a brilliant ray of sunshine, the Escorial, a levia-
than of architecture. The effect from afar is exceed-
ingly fine ; it looks like a vast Oriental palace ; the stone
capitals and the balls which top every pinnacle greatly
conduce to that illusion. Before reaching it you trav-
erse a great wood of olive trees adorned with crosses
curiously perched upon most picturesque huge boulders.
At the end of the wood you enter the village, and
are face to face with the colossus, which, like all
colossi, loses a great deal by nearness. The first thing
which struck me was the vast number of swallows and
martins which circled in the air in innumerable swarms,
uttering sharp, piercing cries. The poor little birds
seemed terrified by the deadly silence which broods
over this Thebaid, and endeavoured to impart sound
and animation to it.

10 145

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

It is well known that the Escorial was built in ful-
filment of a vow made by Philip at the siege of Saint
Quentin, when he was obliged to bombard the Church
of Saint Laurence. He promised the saint to com-
pensate him for the church which he had destroyed by
building another larger and finer, and he kept his word
better than the kings of the earth usually do. The
Escorial, begun by Juan Bautista, completed by
Herrera, is unquestionably, next to the pyramids of
Egypt, the most enormous heap of granite on earth.
In Spain it is called the eighth wonder of the world.
As ever\' country has its eighth wonder, there must be
at least thirty eighth wonders.

I am greatly puzzled to state my opinion of the
Escorial. Yet, on my soul and conscience, I cannot
help thinking it the ugliest and gloomiest monument
which an ambitious monk and a suspicious tyrant could
possibly devise for the mortification of their fellow-
men. I am well aware that the purpose of the
Escorial is austere and religious, but gravity is not
necessarily coldness, and melancholy is not necessarily
emaciation ; recollection is not weariness, and beauty
of form may always be happily wedded to novelty
of thought.

146

THE ESCORIAL

The Escorial is planned in the shape of a gridiron,
in honour of Saint Laurence. Four square towers
represent the feet of the instrument of torture, the
connecting buildings form the framework, other trans-
verse buildings simulate the bars; the palace and the
church are built in the handle. This curious notion,
which must have given much trouble to the architect,
is not readily perceived, although it is very plain on the
plan, and were one not informed of it beforehand, it
would certainly escape notice. I do not blame this
puerile symbolism, which is entirely in the taste of the
age, for I am convinced that specific directions, far
from being an obstacle to an artist of genius, aid and
sustain him, and lead him to discover resources which
otherwise he would not have thought of; but It seems
to me that something much more effective might have
been worked out. People who are fond of good taste
and sobrletv In architecture will think the Escorial per-
fect, for the only line employed In it Is a straight line,
and the only order Is the Doric order, which Is the
barest of them all. A disagreeable early Impression Is
caused by the yellow-earth colour of the walls, which
might be mistaken for clay walls, did not the joints of
the stones, brought out by staring white lines, prove

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the contrary. Nothing can be more monotonous than
these six or seven story buildings, without mouldings,
pilasters, or cornices, with small, low windows, which
look like the holes in a beehive. It is an ideal bar-
racks and hospital. Its only merit is that it is in
granite, — a wasted merit, since a hundred yards off it
can be mistaken for clay. On top of all is a heavy
dwarfed cupola, which I cannot compare to anything
better than the dome of the Val-de-Grace, and which
for sole ornament boasts a multitude of granite balls.
All around, in order that the symmetry may be in no
wise diminished, monuments have been built in the
same style, — that is to say, with a multitude of small
windows and with no ornamentation. These build-
ings have been joined together by bridge-like galleries
thrown across the streets which lead to the village, now
but a heap of ruins.

The ground around the monument is flagged with
granite, and the boundaries are marked by low three-
foot walls adorned with the inevitable balls at every
angle and opening. The facade, which does not pro-
ject in the least from the main body of the monument,
makes, therefore, no break upon the bareness of the
lines and is scarcely noticeable, though it is gigantic.

148

THE ESCORIAL

You enter first into a vast court, at the end of which
rises a church portal, noticeable only for its colossal
statues of prophets, its gilded ornaments, and its rose-
painted figures. The court is flagged, damp, and cold ;
grass grows in the corners ; as you step into It weari-
ness presses down upon you like a leaden cope ; your
heart sinks, and you feel as if there were an end of all
things and joy were forever dead to you. You have
not gone twenty steps from the gate, when you smell
a faint, icy, savourless odour of holy water and
funeral vault, wafted by a current of air laden with
pleurisy and catarrh. Although the thermometer
stands at eighty degrees outside, you are chilled to the
marrow and feel as if never again would life warm in
your veins, your blood, turned colder than serpent's
blood. The walls, impenetrable as a tomb, do not
allow the living air to filter through their vast thick-
ness. Well, in spite of that cloister-like, Russian cold,
the first thing I beheld on entering the church was a
Spanish woman kneeling on the stones, who was beat-
ing her breast with her fist with one hand, and with
the other fanning herself at least as fervently. The
fan — I remember it perfectly — was of a water-green
colour, which makes me shudder when I think of it.

149

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

The guide who piloted us through the interior of
the edifice was blind, and it was really marvellous to
see how accurately he stopped before the pictures, the
subject and painter of which he named without ever
making a mistake. He led us up into the dome, and
made us wander through endless corridors, ascending
and descending, which equal in their labyrinthine
maze Anne Radcliffe's " The Confessional of the
Black Penitents," or " The Castle of the Pyrenees."

The interior of the church is bare and cold. Huge,
mouse-gray pillars of granite filled with grains of mica
as coarse as kitchen salt, rise to the fresco-painted
vaults, the azure and vaporous shades of which ill
harmonise with the cold, wretched colours of the archi-
tecture. The retable, carved and gilded in Spanish
fashion, and with very handsome paintings, somewhat
compensates for the bareness of the decoration, in
which everything is sacrificed to an insipid symmetry.
The gilded bronze statues which kneel at the ends of
the retable, and which represent, if I mistake not, Don
Carlos and princesses of the royal family, are most
effective and in a grand style. The chapter house,
which is next the high altar> is in itself a vast church.
The stalls, instead of blooming out Into fantastic ara-

150

THE ESCORIAL

besques like those of Burgos, share the general rigidity
and are mefely decorated with small mouldings. We
were shown the one in which sat for fourteen years the
sombre Philip II, a king born to be a grand inquisitor.
It is the corner stall. A door cut in the wood-work
leads to the interior of the palace.

Without priding myself upon very profound devo-
tion, I never enter a Gothic cathedral without feeling
a mysterious and deep sensation, an extraordinary
emotion, and without a vague fear that I shall meet
around some cluster of pillars God the Father Himself,
with his long silver beard, his purple mantle, and his
azure gown, collecting within the folds of his robe
the prayers of the faithful. In the church of the
Escorial one is so overwhelmed, crushed, one is so
thoroughly in the grasp of an inflexible and gloomy
power, that the uselessness of prayer is plainly demon-
strated. The God of such a temple can never be
moved.

After having visited the church, we went down into
the Pantheon, the name given to the crypt in which
are deposited the bodies of the kings. It is an octag-
onal hall thirty-six feet in diameter and thirty-eight
feet high, situated exactly under the high altar, so that

151

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the priest when saying Mass stands upon the keystone.
It is reached by a staircase of granite and coloured
marble closed by splendid bronze gates. The Pan-
theon is lined with jasper, porphyry, and other precious
marbles. In the walls are cut niches with cippi of
antique form intended to receive the bodies of the
kings and queens who have left successors. The cold
in this crypt is deadly and penetrating ; the polished
marble reflects the trembling rays of the torch ; it
seems to be dripping with water, and one could easily
imagine himself in a submarine grotto. The weight
of the vast edifice crushes you, surrounds, grips, and
stifles you ; you feel caught, as it were, in the ten-
tacles of a gigantic granite polypus. The dead con-
tained in the sepulchral urns seem more dead than
others, and it is difficult to believe that they can ever
be resurrected. Here, as in the church, the impression
borne in upon one is of sinister despair. There is not
in these gloomy vaults a single crack through which
the glad heaven may be seen.

There are a few good paintings left in the sacristy,
thoush the best of them have been transferred to the
Royal Museum in Madrid. Among others there are
two or three paintings of the German school on panels ;

THE E S C O R I A L

these are of rare merit. The ceiling of the great
staircase was painted in fresco by Luca Giordano, and
represents in allegory the vow of Philip II and the
foundation of the convent. The acres of walls in
Spain painted by Luca Giordano are fairly amazing,
and it is difficult for us moderns, who are breathless
before we have got through half the shortest task, to
conceive how such work was possible. Pellegrino
Tibaldi, Cambiaso, Carducci, Romulo, Cincinato, and
several others have painted cloisters, tombs, and ceil-
ings in the Escorial. The library ceiling, which is by
Carducci and Pellegrino Tibaldi, is in a satisfactory,
clear, luminous fresco tone ; the composition is rich,
the interlaced arabesques are in excellent taste. The
Escorial library has this peculiarity, that the books are
placed with their backs to the wall and the front
towards the spectator. I do not know the reason for
this. The library is especially rich in Arabic manu-
scripts, and must assuredly contain inestimable treas-
ures wholly unknown. The remaining books struck
me as being generally on theology and scholastic phi-
losophy. We were shown some vellum manuscripts
with illuminations and miniatures, but as it happened
to be a Sunday and the librarian was absent, we could

153

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

not see more, and we had to leave without seeing a
single incunabulum.

In one of the corridors stands a life-size Christ in
white marble attributed to Benvenuto Cellini, and a
few very strange, fantastic pictures after the manner
of Callot's and Teniers' " Temptation," but very
much older. Nothing more monotonous, however,
can be conceived than these gray granite corridors
which wind through the building like veins in a human
body ; it takes a blind man to find his way through
them. You go up and down, you turn constantly ;
it would not take more than three or four hours'
walking there to wear out the soles of one's shoes,
for the granite is rough as a file and as gritty as sand-
paper. From the dome you see nothing but balls
which from below appear the size of bells, but are of
huge dimensions and could be turned into monstrous
globes. The vast prospect is unrolled before you, and
you embrace at a glance the whole district which
separates you from Madrid. On the other side rise
the Guadarrama mountains. From here you can see
the whole plan of the monument ; you look into the
courts and cloisters with their rows of arcades rising
one above another, with their fountains and their cen-

154

THE ESCORIAL

tral pavilions. The roofs show saddle-wise, as in a
bird's-eye view.

At the time we went up into the dome there was in
a huge chimney-top, in a great nest of straw like an
overturned turban, a stork with its three young chicks.
This interesting family showed most quaintly against
the sky. The hen stork stood upon one leg in the
centre of the nest, its neck sunk in its shoulders, its
beak majestically placed upon its tuft, like a meditating
philosopher ; the chicks stretched out their long beaks
and necks asking for food. I hoped for a moment
that I might witness one of those sentimental scenes
told of in books on natural history, in which the great
white pelican tears its breast to feed its young, but the
stork seemed unmoved by these demonstrations of
starvation. The melancholy group further increased
the deep solitude of the place, and gave an Egyptian
aspect to this vast building worthv of the Pharaohs.
On coming down we saw a garden which contains
more architecture than vegetation. It is composed of
terraces and parterres of clipped boxwood laid out in
designs like those on old damask, with a few fountains
and a few greenish pools ; a solemn, dull garden,
worthv of the gloomy pile of which it forms a part.

155

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

It is said that there are eleven hundred windows on
the exterior of the building alone, which makes the
average tourist gape with astonishment. 1 did not
count them ; but it is not in the least improbable, for
I have never seen so many windows together. The
number of doors is equally fabulous.

I issued from that granite desert, that monkish
necropolis, with an extraordinary sensation of satisfac-
tion and lightness. I seemed to be reborn, to be
capable of again becoming young, and to rejoice in
God's creation, which I had lost all hope of doing
within these funeral vaults. The warm, bright air
enveloped me like a soft stuff of fine wool, and
warmed my body, chilled by the cadaverous atmos-
phere. I was freed from that architectural nightmare,
which I thought would never come to an end. I
advise people who are foolish enough to imagine that
they are bored, to go and spend three or four days in
the Escorial; they will learn there what true weariness
is, and they will enjoy themselves all the rest of their
lives by merely thinking that they might be In the
Escorial and that they are not.

156

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

TOLEDO

WE had exhausted the sights of Madrid, and
were beginning to be somewhat bored ; so in
spite of the great heat and all sorts of terrible stories
about the rebels and the rateros, we bravely started
for Toledo, the city of sword blades and romantic
daggers.

Toledo is not only one of the oldest cities of Spain,
but of the world, if the chroniclers are to be believed.
The most staid among them place its foundation at a
time anterior to the flood. Why should they not put
it as far back as the pre-Adamite kings, a few years
before the creation of the world ? Others attribute
the honour of its foundation to Tubal Cain, others
again to the Greeks, others to Telmon and Brutus,
Roman consuls, others to the Jews who entered Spain
with Nebuchadnezzar and maintain their contention
bv the etymology of Toledo, which comes, they say,
from toledoth^ a Hebrew word which means genera-
tions, because the twelve tribes had helped to build

157

:l::l: 4: :l:^ ^ ^^ 4:^4? 4.4; 4.4; 4: 4; 4; 4; 4; 4. 4. 4: 4;

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

and settle it. Whatever the truth may be, Toledo is
certainly a wonderfully old city, situated some thirty-
six miles from Madrid, — Spanish miles, of course,
which are much longer than a twelve-column article
or a day without money, the two longest things we
know about. The trip is made in a calesa, or in a
small mail-coach which starts twice a week. The
latter is considered safer, for in Spain, as formerly
in France, no one starts on the shortest trip with-
out making his will. The fear of brigands must
surely be exaggerated, for in the course of a very long
pilgrimage through provinces having the reputation of
being most dangerous, we have never met with any-
thing which would justify this panicky terror.

You leave Madrid by the Toledo Gate and Bridge,
both of which are adorned with flower-pots, statues, and
chicory leaves in very poor taste, but produce never-
theless a rather majestic effect. You pass on the
right the village of Caramanchel, whence Ruy Bias
fetched for Mary of Neubourg the little blue German
flower (Ruy Bias to-day would not find a trace of
forget-me-nots in this cork-bark hamlet built upon a
soil of pumice stone) ; and you enter, travelling upon
a wretched road, an endless, dusty plain covered with

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TOLEDO

corn and rye, the pale-yellow colour of which increases
the monotony of the landscape. A few ill-omened
crosses, which spread here and there their thin arms,
a few steeples which indicate an unseen village, the
dried bed of a torrent crossed by a stone arch, are the
only breaks in this monotony. From time to time you
meet a peasant on his mule, carbine by his side, a
muchacho driving before him two or three asses laden
with earthenware jars or bundles of straw tied with
cords, or a poor, wan, sunburned woman, dragging a
fierce-looking child, — that is all.

As we proceeded the landscape became barer and
more desert-like, and it was with a feeling of secret
satisfaction that we perceived upon a bridge of dry
stone the five green light-cavalrymen who were to
escort us, for an escort is needed in travelling from
Madrid to Toledo.

We breakfasted at Illescas, a town in which there
are some remains of old Moorish buildings, and where
the windows of the houses are protected by compli-
cated gratings surmounted by crosses.

Beyond Illescas the country becomes more hilly, and
the road consequently more abominable. It is nothing
but a succession of break-neck hills, which, however,

159

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

do not prevent the pace from being fast ; for Spanish
postilions do not care a bit about what happens behind
them provided they themselves get to their destina-
tion ; even if they bring along the pole and the front
wheels only, they are quite satisfied. However, we
reached our destination without mishap, in a cloud of
dust raised by our mules and the horses of our escort,
and entered Toledo, devoured with curiosity and thirst,
through a magnificent Arab gate with an elegant
horse-shoe arch and granite pillars surmounted by balls
and covered with verses of the Alkoran. The gate is
called the Sun Gate. It is of a reddish, warm tone,
like that of a Portugal orange, and its profile stands
out admirably against a clear, lapis-lazuli sky. In our
grayer climate we cannot have any conception of the
virulence of colour and the sharpness of contour of
these monuments, and the paintings which represent
them always strike one as exaggerated.

After having passed the Puerta del Sol, you reach a
sort of terrace from which you can enjoy a vast pros-
pect, — the Vega, dappled and striped with trees and
fields which are indebted for their greenness to the
irrigation system introduced by the Moors. The
yellow Tagus, crossed by the two bridges of Saint

i6o

TOLEDO

Martin and the Alcantara, flows rapidly and almost
wholly encloses the town in one of its windings. At
the foot of the terrace sparkle the brown, shining roofs
of the houses, and the steeples of the convents and
churches, with their green and white tiles arranged
checkerwise. Beyond are seen the reddish hills and
the bare slopes v/hich form Toledo's horizon. The
prospect is peculiar in this, that it wholly lacks ambient
air and the haze which in our climate always veils
broad landscapes. The transparency of the air leaves
the lines perfectly clean, and enables you to perceive
the smallest hill at a considerable distance.

Our trunks having been inspected, we hastened to
look for an inn. We were taken, through such
narrow streets that two laden asses could not have
gone through side by side, to the Fonda de los
Caballeros, one of the most comfortable in the city.
There, with the help of the few Spanish words we
knew, and of pathetic pantomime, we succeeded in
making the hostess — an intelligent and charming
woman, most interesting and distinguished-looking —
understand that we were starving.

The whole kitchen brigade got under way, the
innumerable small jars in which are distilled and sub-

II i6i

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

limated the spicy stews of Spanish cookery were placed
on the fire, and we were promised dinner in an hour's
time. We turned the time to account by examining
the inn more closely. It was a handsome building, no
doubt some old mansion, with an inner court paved
with coloured marbles arranged in mosaic pattern,
and ornamented with wells of white marble and
troughs faced with tiles in which the glass ware and
the jars are washed. The court is called a patio. It
is usually surrounded by columns and arcades, with
an artificial fountain in the centre. An awning, which
is drawn up in the cool of the evening, forms the
ceiling of this sort of outside drawing-room. Around
the first story of the court runs an iron balcony, beauti-
fully wrought, on which open the windows and doors
of the apartments, which people use only to dress, eat,
and sleep in. The rest of the time is spent in this
open-air drawing-room, in which are placed pictures,
chairs, sofas, and the piano, and which is brightened
with pots of flowers and orange trees in boxes.

We had scarcely finished our examination, when
we were informed that dinner was ready. It proved
to be not bad. Having finished our meal, we pro-
ceeded to visit the city.

162

r O L E D O

The Toledo streets are excessively narrow. One
might shake hands across them, and it would be the
easiest thing in the world to step across from one
balcony to the other, if the exceedingly beautiful
gratings and charming bars in that superb iron-work
which is lavished everywhere in Spain, did not inter-
fere and prevent aerial familiarities. These narrow
streets would cause an outcry among all the partisans
of civilisation, for they only dream of immense open
spaces, vast squares, extravagantly wide streets, and
other more or less progressive embellishments ; yet
nothing is more sensible than a narrow street in a hot
climate. At the bottom of these narrow lanes so
wiselv cut through the groups and islands of houses,
one enjoys delightful shade and coolness. Of course
my remark applies only to hot countries, where it
never rains, where mud is unknown, and carriages are
exceedingly rare. Narrow streets in our wet climate
would be abominable cesspools. In Spain women go
out on foot in black satin shoes and take long walks,
which causes me to admire them, especially in Toledo,
where the pavements are composed of small, sharp,
polished, shining pebbles, which seem to have been
carefullv placed with the cutting edge up ; but the

163

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

well shod, firm little feet of the ladies are as hard
as gazelles' hoofs, and they travel lightly over these
diamond-pointed paving-stones which draw cries of
anguish from a traveller accustomed to the soft
asphalt.

The Toledo houses have an imposing and severe
appearance. There are very few windows in the
facades and they are usually grated. The doors,
adorned with pillars of polished granite surmounted
with balls, — a frequent form of ornamentation, — look
thick and solid, an impression increased by constella-
tions of huge nails. They recall, at one and the same
time, convents, prisons, fortresses, and, indeed, harems,
for the Moors have passed here. Some few houses, as
a curious contrast, are coloured and painted externally
in fresco or distemper, with imitation bassi-relievl mono-
chromes, flowers, rockwork, and wreaths, with per-
fume-pans, medallions, Cupids, and all the mythological
rubbish of the last century. These houses produce
the quaintest and most comical effect among their
sombre sisters of feudal or Moorish origin.

We were led through a labyrinth of small lanes,
in which we had to walk in single file, to the Alcazar,
situated, like a necropolis, at the highest point of the

164

TOLEDO

city. Built on the ruins of the old Moorish palace,
the Alcazar itself is a ruin to-day, and it might be one
of those remarkable architectural visions which Pira-
nesi sought and realised in his magnificent etchings.
It is by Covarrubias, a little known artist, but much
superior to the dull and heavy Herrera, whose repu-
tation is a great deal overdone.

The facade, adorned with a bloom of the purest
Renaissance arabesques, is a masterpiece of noble
elegance. The burning sun of Spain, which turns
marble red and stone saffron, has coated it with rich
and vigorous colours far different from the black
leprosy which age imparts to our old buildings. As
a great poet has said, " Time has passed his intelligent
hand " over the edges of the marble, over the too
rigid contours, and given to the sculpture, already
so rich and undulating, the last touch and polish. I
particularly recall the great staircase, very light in its
elegance, with marble columns, pilasters, and steps,
already half broken, leading to a door that opens on
an abvss ; for that portion of the building has fallen
in. This superb staircase, which a king might inhabit
and which leads to nothing, produces a strange and
threatening effect.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

The Alcazar is built upon a great esplanade sur-
rounded by ramparts crenellated in Oriental fashion,
from the top of which one enjoys the vast prospect
and really wonderful panorama. On this side the
cathedral sends up into heaven its lofty spire; farther
away gleams in the sunshine the church of San Juan
de los Reyes ; the Alcazar Bridge, with its tower
gate, spans the Tagus with bold arches; the Juanello
Artificio fills up the river with its superposed arcades
of red bricks, which might be mistaken for the
remains of Roman constructions ; and the massive
towers of Cervantes' Casillo (this Cervantes has noth-
ing in common with the author of Don Quixote),
perched upon the rocky and shapeless cliffs which
border the river, make still another break on an hori-
zon already so strikingly varied by the crests of the
mountains.

An exquisite sunset completed the picture. The

sky by imperceptible gradations passed from the most

brilliant red to orange, then to pale citron, and finally

into a weird blue of the colour of greenish turquoise,

which itself melted in the west into the lilac tints of

night, the shadows of which already darkened the

whole of that part.

—

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TOLEDO

Leaning on an embrasure of a crenellation and hav-
ing a bird's-eye view of that city in which I knew not
a soul, and where my name was utterly unknown, I
fell into a deep meditation in the presence of all these
shapes which I saw and probably would never again
see. I began to doubt my own identity ; I felt so far
away from myself, carried to such a distance outside
of my usual sphere that it all seemed to me a hallu-
cination, a strange dream out of which I should start
awake to the sharp, trembling strains of some vaude-
ville music as I sat in a theatre box. In spite of the
magnificent prospect, I felt my soul filled with a
mighty sadness ; and yet I was realising the dream
of my life ; I was touching one of my most ardently
caressed desires. I had spoken enough, in my fair
youthful years of Romanticism, of my good Toledo
blade, to be anxious to see the place where Toledo
blades are made.

It took nothing less to draw me from my philo-
sophical meditations than a proposal on the part of my
friend that we should go and bathe in the Tagus.
Now a bath is prettv rare in a country where m
summer they have to fill up the rivers with water
drawn from the wells ; but on our guide asserting

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

that the Tagus was a genuine stream and damp
enough to enable one to swim in it, we hastened to
descend from the Alcazar in order to profit by the
lingering twilight, and went towards the river. We
passed under a fine Arab gate with a brick arch, and
reached the Alcantara Bridge, near which there was
a spot suitable for bathing, reached by a winding, very
steep path crawling along the rocks which enclose
Toledo.

Having had our bath, we hastened back to re-enter
the city before the gates were closed, enjoyed a glass
of orchata de chufas and iced milk of most exquisite
taste and bouquet, and were shown back to our fonda.
Our room, like all Spanish rooms, was whitewashed
and adorned with those dim, yellow paintings, those
mystical daubs, painted like the signs of beer shops,
which are so often met with in the Peninsula, the
country of the world which contains the greatest num-
ber of wretched paintings.

The Cathedral of Toledo is accounted, and rightly,
the finest and one of the richest of Spain. Its origin
is lost in the mists of ages, but if the native authors
are to be believed, it goes back to the Apostle Santiago,
the first Bishop of Toledo, who indicated its site to his

TOLEDO

disciple and successor, Elpidius. Elpidius built a
church on the spot and dedicated it to Saint Mary,
while that divine lady was still living in Jerusalem.

The Blessed Virgin was not ungrateful, and, accord-
ing to the same legend, came in person to visit the
church in Toledo and brought with her own hands to
Saint Ildefonso a beautiful chasuble made of heavenly
linen. The chasuble is still in existence, and in the
wall may be seen the stone upon which the divine
foot was placed, the imprint of which it still bears.

This church existed up to the time of Saint
Eugenius, sixth Bishop of Toledo, who enlarged and
embellished it as much as his means allowed, under the
title of Our Lady of the Assumption, which it bears
to-day. In the year 200, at the time of the cruel per-
secution which the emperors Diocletian and Maximin
declared against the Christians, the prefect Dacian
ordered the temple to be demolished and razed to the
ground, so that the faithful had no means of receiving
the Host. Three years later, Constantius, father of the
great Constantine, having ascended the throne, the per-
secution came to an end, the prelates returned to their
sees, and the Archbishop Melancius began to rebuild
the church, still on the same spot. Shortly afterwards

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(about the year 312), Constantine having been con-
verted to the Christian faith, he ordered, among other
heroic works to which he was impelled by his Christian
zeal, the repairing and building at his expense, in the
most sumptuous manner possible, of the basilica of Our
Lady of the Assumption of Toledo, which Dacian had
caused to be destroyed.

The Archbishop of Toledo at that time was Mari-
nus, a wise and learned man, who was on intimate
terms with the Emperor. This gave him a free hand,
and he spared nothing to build a remarkably magnifi-
cent church of grand and sumptuous architecture. It
was this church which lasted through the Catholic
dominion, the one visited by the Virgin, the one which
was turned into a mosque during the conquest of
Spain ; the same one which, when Toledo was retaken
by King Alonzo VI, again became a church, and the
plan of which was taken to Oviedo by order of King
Don Alonzo the Chaste, in order that the church
of San Salvador in the latter city should be built on the
same lines, in the year 803. " Those who are desirous
of knowing the shape, grandeur, and majesty of the
Cathedral of Toledo in those days, when the Queen of
Angels came down to visit it, need only go and see

170

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Oviedo Cathedral, and they will be satisfied." For
ourselves, we greatly regret that we could not enjoy
this pleasure. Finally, under the happy reign of Saint
Ferdinand, Don Rodriguez being Archbishop of Toledo,
the church assumed the marvellous and magnificent
form which it possesses to-day, and which, it is said, is
that of the temple of Diana at Ephesus. O artist
chronicler, permit me to disbelieve this ' The temple
of Ephesus was not as beautiful as the cathedral of
Toledo. Archbishop Rodriguez, accompanied by the
King and the court, having celebrated pontifical mass,
laid the foundation stone on a Saturday, in the year
1227. The work was carried on with much vigour
until it was completed and carried to the highest degree
of perfection which human art can attain.

May we be forgiven for this slight historical digres-
sion, a thing which we are not prone to indulge in.

The exterior of the cathedral at Toledo Is much less
richly decorated than that of the cathedral at Burgos ;
It does not bloom all over with ornamencs ; it has no
arabesques, no lines of saints massed around the por-
tals ; it has solid buttresses, clean, sharp angles, a thick
cuirass of dressed stone, a steeple of robust aspect,
which lacks the delicacy of Gothic work ; and all this

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of a reddish tint, like toast, or the tanned skin of a
Palestine pilgrim. But, on the other hand, the interior
is carved and wrought like a stalactite grotto.

The gate by which we entered is of bronze and
bears the following inscription : " Antonio Zurreno,
worker in gold and siher, made this centre door."
The Interior gives at once a deep impression of gran-
deur. The church is divided into five naves. The
central one is of vast height, the others seem to bow
their heads and kneel in token of adoration and respect.
Eighty-eight pillars as huge as towers, each one com-
posed of sixteen slender columns set close to each
other, support the huge bulk of the edifice. A transept
cuts the great nave between the choir and the high
altar, and thus forms the arms of the cross. The
whole building, a very unusual thing in Gothic cathe-
drals, which have generally been built at various periods,
is in the most homogeneous and complete style; the
original plan has been carried out from end to end save
in the arrangement of some chapels which in no wise
mar the harmony of the general aspect. Stained-glass
windows, in which gleam emerald, sapphire, and ruby
set in stone tracery-work as delicate as finger-rings,
shed a gentle, mysterious light which induces religious

TOLEDO

ecstasy. When the sunshine is too brilliant, esparto
blinds drawn across the windows maintain that cool
semi-obscurity which makes Spanish churches so
favourable to recollection and prayer. The high altar,
or retable, is large enough for a church in itself. It is
* huge mass of small columns, niches, statues, scrolls,
and arabesques, of which the minutest description
would give but a very faint idea. All this work,
which rises to the vaulting and runs around the sanc-
tuary, is painted and gilded with inconceivable richness.
The rich, warm tones of the old gilding admirably
bring out the streaks and spangles of light, cut by the
groining and the projecting ornaments, producing won-
drous and most varied effects. The paintings on gold
backgrounds which adorn the panels of the altar equal
in the richness of their colouring the most brilliant paint-
ings of the Venetian school. This combination of
colour and the severe and almost hieratic forms of
mediaeval art is seldom met with. Some of the paint-
ings might well be the early work of Giorgione.

Facing the high altar is the choir, or sillaria, in
accordance with Spanish custom. It contains a triple
row of stalls in carved wood, wrought and adorned
In handsome fashion with historical, allegorical, and

^73

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

sacred bassi-relievi. Gothic art, as the Renaissance
approached, never produced anything freer, more per-
fect, or better designed. This work, the details of
which are amazing, is attributed to the patient chisels
of Felipe Vigarni and Berruguete. The archbishop's
stall, higher than the others, is arranged like a throne
and marks the centre of the choir. Jasper columns of
a shining brown tone crown this marvellous joiner-
work, and upon the entablature rise alabaster figures,
also by Felipe Vigarni, but freer and easier in manner,
and most effective and elegant. A huge bronze lec-
tern, laden with gigantic missals ; great esparto mats ;
two colossal organs, placed opposite each other, the
one on the right, the other on the left, — complete
the description of the choir. Behind the retable is the
chapel, where are buried Don Alvar de Luna and his
wife in two magnificent alabaster tombs placed side by
side. The walls of the chapel are ornamented with
the Constable's arms and the shells of the order of
Santiago, of which he was grand master. Close by,
in the vaulting of that portion of the nave here called
trascoro^ is noticed a stone with a funeral inscription.
It is that of a nobleman of Toledo, whose pride re-
volted at the thought that people of low birth would

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tread over his tomb. " I will not have the low-born
walk over me," he said on his death-bed ; and as he
bequeathed great wealth to the Church, his strange
caprice was humoured by placing his body in the
masonry of the vaulting, where assuredly no one will
walk over him.

We shall not attempt to describe the various chapels;
it would take a whole volume. Let us be satisfied with
mentioning the tomb of a cardinal, carved in the Arab
taste with minute delicacy. We cannot compare it to
anything better than lace on a large scale. We shall
come at once to the Mozarabic chapel, one of the
most interesting in the cathedral. Before describing it,
let us explain its name.

At the time of the Moorish invasion the inhabitants
of Toledo were obliged to surrender after a two years'
siege. They endeavoured to obtain the most favour-
able terms, and among the articles agreed upon was
this, that six churches should be preserved for the
Christians who might wish to remain among the
barbarians. These churches were those of Saint
Mark, Saint Luke, Saint Sebastian, Saint Torquato,
Saint Olalla and Saint Just. Thus the faith was pre-
served in the city during the four hundred years of

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Moorish dominion, and for this reason the faithful
Toledans were called Mozarabs, — that is, mingling
with the Arabs. In the reign of Alfonso VI, when
Toledo again fell into the hands of the Christians, the
papal legate Richard wished to have the Mozarabic
ritual given up for the Gregorian rite, backed in this
by the king, and Queen Constantia, who preferred
the Roman ritual. But the clergy revolted and pro-
tested ; the faithful were very indignant, and were
within an ace of breaking out into rebellion. So the
Mozarabic ritual was maintained and enthusiastically
observed for many years by the Mozarabs, their sons,
and their grandsons. But at last the meaning of the
text was forgotten, and no one could be found who
could say or understand the prayers which had been
the object of such a lively disagreement. Don Fran-
cesco Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, desiring to pre-
serve so memorable a use, founded a Mozarabic chapel
in the cathedral, caused to be translated and printed in
ordinary characters the liturgies, which were in Gothic
characters, and appointed priests specially charged to
celebrate Mass according to this ritual.

The Mozarabic chapel, which still exists to-day, is
adorned with most interesting Gothic frescoes, the

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subject being the battles between the Toledans and the
Moors. They are admirably preserved, the colours
are as bright as if they had been laid on yesterday, and
an archaeologist would find here innumerable interest-
ing details of arms, costumes, equipments, and archi-
tecture ; for the principal fresco represents a view of
ancient Toledo which must have been very accurate.
In the lateral frescoes are painted with a wealth of detail
the vessels which brought the Arabs to Spain. A pro-
fessional man might obtain much useful information
for the difficult history of the navy in the Middle Ages.
The arms of Toledo, five mullets sable on a field
argent, are represented in several places in this chapel,
which is closed after the Spanish fashion by iron-work
gates beautifully wrought.

The Chapel of the Virgin, the walls of which are
covered all over with porphyry, jasper, yellow and
violet breccia superbly polished, fairly surpasses in
richness the splendours of the " Thousand and One
Nights." It contains a great many works, among
others a reliquary given by Saint Louis which contains
a piece of the true Cross.

By way of taking breath we shall, if you please,
take a turn through the cloisters, the elegant and

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

severe arcades of which enclose beautiful masses of
verdure that, thanks to the shadow of the church,
are still fresh in spite of the burning heat of the
season. All the walls of the cloister are covered with
vast frescoes in the style of Van Loo, by a painter
called Bayeu. These paintings, which are of fair
composition and pleasant colour, are not in harmony
with the style of the building, and no doubt have
taken the place of older paintings, weather-worn or
thought to be too Gothic by the people of taste of the
time. A cloister is well placed near a church ; it
forms a happy transition from the peace of the sanctu-
ary to the noise of the city ; you can walk, dream, and
think in it without being compelled to follow the
prayers and sermons. The Catholics enter the church,
the Christians generally remain in the cloister. This
state of mind has been understood by the Catholic
Church, which is a clever psychologist. In countries
that are religious-minded, the cathedral is the most
ornate, the richest, the most highly gilded, the most
flowery place; there are to be found the coolest shades
and the deepest peace; the music is superior to that
of the theatre, and the splendour of the ceremonies is
unrivalled. It is the central point, the attractive spot,

^78

TOLEDO

as is our Opera in Paris. We Northern Catholics,
with our Voltairean temples, have no conception of
the luxury, the elegance, the comfort of Spanish
churches. They are furnished and living churches,
and do not have the icy-cold, deserted look of ours.
The faithful here can dwell familiarly with their
God.

The sacristies and the chapter halls of the cathedral
of Toledo are more than regal in their magnificence.
Nothing can be more noble and picturesque than these
great halls ornamented with the quiet, rich luxury of
which the Church alone possesses the secret. Every-
where carved wood-work, in black oak or walnut, por-
tieres in tapestry or damask of the Indies, curtains
with broad deep folds, ornamental hangings, Persian
carpets, fresco paintings. I shall not attempt to de-
scribe them individually, but merely mention one piece
of work adorned with beautiful frescoes representing
religious subjects, in the German style which the
Spaniards have so happily imitated. This work is
attributed to Berruguete's nephew, though it may be
Berruguete's own. For these great geniuses practised
at one and the same time the three forms of art.
There is also a vast ceiling painted by Luca Giordano,

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

on which swarm a multitude of angels and allegorical
figures in the most startling foreshortening, causing a
remarkable optical effect. P>om the centre of the
ceiling falls a beam of light which, although it is
painted upon a flat surface, seems to fall perpendicu-
larly upon you from whatever point you look at it.

There is the Treasury, which contains the beautiful
copes of brocade, of gold cloth, of silk damask, of mar-
vellous lace, the gilded reliquaries, the diamond-studded
monstrances, the huge silver candlesticks, the embroid-
ered banners, in a word, all the properties and acces-
sories needed in the performance of that sublime
Catholic drama called the Mass.

In the closets in one of these rooms is preserved the
Blessed Virgin's wardrobe ; for gold, marble, or ala-
baster statues are unable to satisfy the passionate piety
of the Southerners. Carried away by their devotion,
they heap upon the object of their worship ornaments
extravagant in their richness ; nothing is too beautiful,
nothing too brilliant. They care little that the shape
and material of the statue disappear under the shower
of gems ; the great point with them is that it shall be
physically impossible to hang another pearl in the

marble ears of the idol, to set a larger brilliant in her
_

TOLEDO

golden crown, or to draw with precious stones one
other design upon the brocade of her dress.

Never did any queen of antiquity, not even Cleo-
patra who drank pearls, never did any Byzantine
empress, never did any mediaeval duchess or Venetian
courtesan of Titian's day possess a more gorgeous
jewel-case, a richer wardrobe than Our Lady of
Toledo. Some of the dresses were shown us. One
of them is wholly covered — so much so that one
cannot even imagine what the stuff is of which it is
made — with designs and arabesques embroidered in
fine pearls, among which are some of inestimable size
and price. These are edged with black pearls of in-
credible rarity. Suns and stars of gems are studded
over this marvellous dress which dazzles the eye and
is worth several millions of francs.

We closed our visit by climbing the steeple, the top
of which is reached by ladders placed one above an-
other, rather straight and not very safe to look at.
About half-way up there is seen, in a sort of store-
room, a collection of huge lay figures, coloured and
dressed in the fashion of the last century, which are
used on the occasion of some procession or another,
like that of the Tarasque at Tarascon.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

The magnificent prospect enjoyed from the top of
the spire largely repays one for the fatigue of the
ascent. The whole city is spread out below. The
hump-shaped, quaintly contorted rocks of blue granite
which border the Tagus and bound one side of the
view of Toledo, increase the strangeness of the land-
scape, which is flooded with hard, pitiless, blinding
light, which no gradation tempers, and which is in-
creased by the reverberation of a cloudless, vapourless,
white-hot sky.

The heat was atrocious ; it was like that of a lime-
kiln, and one had to be urged by mad curiosity not to
give up further visiting of monuments in such an
African temperature ; but we were still possessed with
the fierce ardour of Parisians enthusiastic over local
colour. Nothing could stop us ; we only stayed our
steps to drink, for we were thirstier than Afric's
golden sands, and we imbibed water as if we had been
dried sponges.

Having visited the cathedral, we resolved, in spite of
our thirst, to proceed to the church of San Juan de los
Reyes, but it was only after prolonged discussion that
we succeeded in obtaining the keys of it, for the
church has been closed for five or six years, and the

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TOLEDO

convent to which it belongs is abandoned and falling
into decay.

The church is situated on the banks of the Tagus,
close to the Saint Martin's Bridge. The walls have
that rich, orange tint which colours ancient monu-
ments in rainless climates. A series of statues of
kings, in noble and chivalrous attitudes and of proud
port, decorates the exterior, but this is not the most
remarkable point of San Juan de los Reyes, for all
mediaeval churches have a population of statues. In-
numerable chains hanging from hooks adorn the walls
from top to bottom. These are the fetters of the
Christian prisoners delivered at the conquest of Gra-
nada. These chains, suspended by way of ornament
and ex voto^ give the church a strange and repulsive
prison look.

The key turned with difficulty in the rusty lock.
Having overcome this slight obstacle, we entered
an exceedingly beautiful devastated cloister. Separate
slender columns supported upon their flowery capitals
arcades adorned with mouldings and tracery of extreme
delicacy. Along the walls ran long inscriptions in
praise of Ferdinand and Isabella, in Gothic characters in-
terlaced with flowers, lines, and arabesques, — a Chris-

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tian imitation of the maxims and verses of the Koran
which the Moors used as architectural ornaments.
What a pity that so precious a monument should be
thus abandoned '

Having kicked open some doors fastened by worm-
eaten bars or obstructed by rubbish, we succeeded in
entering the church, built in a charming style, and
which seems, save for some startling mutilations, to
have been completed but yesterday. There is nothing
more elegant and delicate in Gothic art. Around the
church runs a gallery with open-work balustrade. Its
venturesome balconies cling to the groups of pillars,
following closely their hollows and projections. Vast
scrolls, eagles, chimeras, hieratic beasts, coats of arms,
bannerets, and emblematic inscriptions after the fashion
of those in the cloister, form the decoration. The
choir, placed opposite the high altar at the other end
of the church, is separated from it by a bold and strik-
ing elliptical arch. The altar, which must have been
a masterpiece of sculpture and painting, has been piti-
lessly torn down. Such useless devastation stuns one
and makes one doubt human intelligence, for in what
respect do old stones injure new ideas ? Cannot a
revolution be managed without overthrowing the past ?

184

TOLEDO

It seems to us the constitution would have lost
nothing if the church of Ferdinand and Isabella the
Catholic, that noble Queen who believed the word of
a man of genius and presented the universe with a new
world, had been left standing.

Venturing upon a half-ruined stair, we reached the
interior of the convent. The refectory is large, but
presents nothing interesting save a frightful painting
above the door. It represents a body in a state of
decomposition, with all the horrible details so compla-
cently treated by Spanish painters. It is rendered still
more hideous by the layer of dirt and dust which
covers it. A symbolical and gloomy inscription, one
of those biblical sentences which form such a terrible
warning to human nothingness, is placed at the foot of
the sepulchral picture, which is a singular choice for a
refectory. I know not if the stories told of the glut-
tony of monks are true, but for myself, I should not
have much appetite in a dining-room thus adorned.

Above, on either side of a long passageway, are
ranged, like the cells of a beehive, the deserted cells of
the vanished monks. They are exactly alike and all
whitewashed. The whitewashing considerably dimin-
ishes the poetic impression, for it prevents terror and

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

imagination from concealing themselves in dark cor-
ners. The interior of the church and the cloister are
also whitewashed, both thus having a look of newness
which contrasts with the style of the architecture and
the condition of the buildings. The lack of moisture
and the heat of the climate have prevented plants and
weeds from growing in the interstices of the stones and
rubbish, which consequently do not possess the green
mantle of ivy which time throws over ruins in Northern
climates.

We wandered for a long time through the aban-
doned edifice, traversing long, endless corridors, ascend-
ing and descending risky stairs, and then withdrew,
for there was nothing interesting to see, not even the
kitchens to which our guide showed us the way. The
church and cloister are rather magnificent, the remain-
der is simple to a degree. Everything is done for the
soul, and nothing for the body.

At a short distance from San Juan de los Reyes

stands the famous Synagogue Mosque, but without a

guide you might pass a score of times in front of it

without suspecting its existence. Our man knocked

at a door cut in a most insignificant-looking wall of

reddish clay. After a time — for the Spaniards are
__

TOLEDO

never in a hurry — it was opened and we were asked
if we wished to see the synagogue. On replying
affirmatively, we were shown into a sort of courtyard
filled with vegetation, in the centre of which grew an
Indian fig-tree with its deep-cut leaves intensely and
brilliantly green as if they were varnished. At the end
of the court rises an insignificant building looking more
like a barn than anything else. We entered it, and
never were we so greatly surprised : we were in the far
East. The slender columns with their flaring, turban-
like capitals, the Turkish arches, the verses of the
Koran, the flat ceiling with cedar panels, the light
admitted from above, — all was there. Vestiges of
former paintings, almost effaced, cast strange colours
upon the walls and added to the peculiar effect. This
synagogue, which the Arabs turned into a mosque and
the Christians into a church, is now used as a work-
shop and dwelling by a joiner ; the altar has been
replaced by a bench. This profanation is quite recent.
The vestiges of the retable are still visible, and the
inscription on black marble which commemorates the
consecration of this edifice to the Catholic worship.

The Jews of Toledo, probably in order to diminish
the horror which they inspired in the minds of the

^8^

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Christian population on account of their being deicides,
claimed not to have consented to the death of Jesus
Christ. When Jesus was tried, the council of priests
presided over by Caiaphas obtained the opinion of the
different tribes, to know whether He should be released
or put to death. The Spanish Jews were asked, and
the Toledo synagogue declared in favour of acquittal ;
so that tribe is not imbrued with the blood of the
Just One and does not deserve the execration felt for
the Jews who voted against the Son of God. The
original text of the reply of the Toledo Jews, with the
Latin translation of the Hebrew, is preserved in the
Vatican archives. In recompense they were allowed
to build this synagogue, which is, I believe, the only
one ever tolerated in Spain.

We had been told of the ruins of a Moorish pleas-
ure palace, the Galiana Palace. We went to it on
leaving the synagogue, although we were tired, for time
pressed and the next day we were to leave for Madrid.
The palace is situated outside the city in the Vega.
After fifteen minutes' walk through fields and culti-
vated ground cut by innumerable irrigation ditches we
reached a shady clump of trees at the foot of which
turned the irrigation wheel, of unique and Egyptian

TOLEDO

simplicity. Earthenware jars fastened to the spokes of
the wheel by reed ropes draw up the water and pour it
into a canal formed of hollow tiles leading to a
reservoir, whence it is easily led by ditches to the
parts to be watered.

A huge heap of reddish brick showed its broken
outline behind the foliage of the trees. It was the
Galiana Palace. We entered this vast mass of debris,
which is inhabited by a peasant family, through a low
door. It is impossible to imagine anything darker,
smokier, more cavern-like, or dirtier. The Troglo-
dytes were lodged like princes in comparison with
these people ; yet the lovely Galiana, the Moorish
beauty, with the long, henna-painted eyes, with bro-
caded jacket studded with pearls, had stepped with
her little slippers upon this broken-down floor; she had
leaned out of this window, looking out upon the Vega
where the Moorish horsemen were practising throwing
the djerrid.

We bravely continued our exploration, climbing to
the upper stories by rickety ladders, clinging with feet
and hands to the tufts of dried grass which hung like
beards from the grimy old walls. Having reached the
top, we became aware of a singular phenomenon ; we

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had entered with white trousers, we were going out with
black trousers, but of a swarming, leaping black. We
were covered by imperceptible little fleas which had
rushed at us in compact swarms, attracted by the cool-
ness of our Northern blood. I could never have
believed that there were so many fleas in the world
as I saw then.

A few pipes which led water to the vapour baths are
the only remains of magnificence spared by time. The
glass mosaic, the enamelled ware, the marble columns
with cupolas, gilded, carved, and adorned with verses of
the Koran, the alabaster fountains, the stones pierced
with holes to allow perfumes to filter through, — all
has vanished. There is nothing left but the frame-
work of the huge walls and heaps of brick which are
turning to dust. For these marvellous buildings, which
recall the fairy scenes of the " Thousand and One
Nights," were unfortunately constructed with brick
onlv, or with clay covered with a layer of stucco and
lime. All the lace work and arabesque are not, as
generally believed, cut out of marble or stone, but
moulded in plaster, which allows of their being repro-
duced in any quantity and very cheaply. It takes the
preserving dryness of the Spanish climate to allow

IQO

TOLEDO

monuments built of such frail materials to stand until
our clay.

First and foremost we had to get rid of the minute
population which marked with their bites the folds
of our once white trousers. The Tagus was not
far away, and we betook ourselves there directly with
the princess's fleas. The bank of the Tagus on this
side is defended by steep rocks difficuk of access, and
we had some trouble in getting down to the spot where
we proposed to carry out the great drowning operation.
I started to swim, as carefully as possible, so as to be
worthy of so famous and respectable a river as the
Tagus, and a few strokes brought me to ruined con-
structions and shapeless remains of mason-work, which
rose a few feet above the level of the river. On the
bank, on the same side, stood an old ruined tower with
a semicircular arch, where some clothes hung up by
washerwomen were briskly drving in the sun. I had
reached Florinda's Bath, and the tower beside me was
King Rodriguez' Tower.

But night is falling and we have to return to the
inn for supper and bed, for we have to see the hospital
of Don Pedro Gonzales de Mendoza, the Arms Manu-
factorv, the remains of the Roman amphitheatre, and

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many another interesting sight ; and we have to leave
to-morrow evening. For my own part, I am so tired
out by the pointed pavements that I have a great mind
to turn upside down and walk a little on my hands, like
the clown, to rest my weary feet. Oh, cabs of civilis-
ation ! Oh, omnibuses of progress ! how pitifully I
called upon you ! but of what use would you have been
in the streets of Toledo ?

The Cardinal's Hospital is a vast building of vast
and severe proportions. We rapidly traversed the court
enclosed by columns and arcades, which has nothing
remarkable save two wells with white marble walls.
We entered the church and examined the cardinal's
tomb, carved in alabaster by that marvellous Benu-
guete, who lived to be more than eighty years of age,
endowing his country with masterpieces of varied style
and perfection. The cardinal lies upon his tomb in his
pontifical robes. Death has pinched his nose with its
skinny fingers, and the final contraction of the muscles
seeking to detain the soul about to escape has drawn in
the corners of his mouth and thinned his chin. Never
was there a death-mask more fearfully truthful, and yet,
such is the beauty of the work that the repulsive side
of it is forgotten. Little children in attitudes of deso-

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lation support the plinth and the cardinal's coat of
arms. The softest and most easily worked terra-
cotta is not freer and richer; this work is not carved,
it is kneaded.

The church also contains two paintings by Domenico
Theotokopouli, called e/ Greco^ an extravagant and er-
ratic painter scarce known outside of Spain. His
curse, as you are aware, was the dread of being con-
sidered an imitator of Titian, whose pupil he had
been ; it led him into the strangest caprices and
attempts. One of these paintings, which represents
the Holy Family, must have worried poor el Greco,
for at the first glance it might be mistaken for a real
Titian. The great warmth of the colouring, the
brilliant tone of the draperies, the beautiful golden-
amber tint, which warms even the coldest colours of
the Venetian painter, — all combine to deceive the
most practised eye. Only, the touch is less free and
rich. The little sense which el Greco had left must
have completely vanished in the sombre ocean of
madness after he had completed this masterpiece.
There are very few painters nowadays capable of
going mad in the same way.

The other painting, which represents the Baptism

13 193

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of Christ, is wholly in el Greco's second manner.
Black and white are used to excess ; it is full of
violent contrasts, of startling tints, of foreshortened
attitudes, of folds broken and rumpled at will ; but
throughout runs a depraved energy, a diseased power,
which betray a great painter and a madman of genius.
Few paintings have interested me as much as those of
el Greco, for his worst always offer something unex-
pected and impossible which surprises vou and makes
you dream.

From the Hospital we went to the Arms Manu-
factory. It is a large, symmetrical building in good
taste, founded by Charles III, whose name is met
with on every monument of public utility. It is situ-
ated close to the Tagus, the water of which is used to
temper the blades and also to drive the machinery.
The workshops are situated around a great courtyard
surrounded with porticos and arcades, like almost every
courtyard in Spain. Here the iron is heated, there
hammered, further on tempered ; in this room are the
grinding and polishing stones, in the other the sheaths
and hilts are made. We shall not carry this investi-
gation farther, for it would not be of any particular
use to our readers, and we will merely say that into

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TOLEDO

the manufacture of these justly famous blades enter
old horse and mule shoes, which are carefully collected
for the purpose. To prove to us that Toledo blades
still deserve their reputation, we were taken to the
testing room. A tall and exceedingly powerful work-
man took a blade of the most ordinary kind, a straight
cavalry rapier, drove it into a pig of lead fixed to the
wall and bent the blade in every direction like a riding-
whip, so that the hilt almost touched the point. The
elastic temper of the steel enabled it to bear this test
without breaking. Then the man stood up in front
of an anvil, and struck it so clean that the blade cut
into it. This feat reminded me of that scene in one
of Walter Scott's novels, where Richard Coeur de
Lion and King Saladin cut iron bars and down pillows.
So the Toledo blades of to-day are as good as those of
yore; the secret of the temper has not been lost, but
the secret of form. All that these modern works lack
is really only that trifle, so despised by progressive
people, in order to compare with the old. A modern
sword is nothing but an instrument; a sword of the
sixteenth century was both a weapon and a gem.

We expected to find in Toledo some old weapons,
daggers, poniards, fencing-swords, two-handed swords,

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rapiers, and other curiosities which one could hang up
as trophies on some wall or sideboard, and for that
purpose we had committed to memory the nam'^s and
private marks of the sixty armourers of Toledo which
Jubinal collected ; but we had no opportunity of test-
ing our knowledge, for there are no swords to be
found in Toledo, any more than you can find leather
in Cordova, lace in Malines, oysters at Ostend, or
pate de foie gras in Strasbourg. Curiosities are to be
found in Paris alone, and if any are met with in
foreign countries, they have come from there.

We were also shown the remains of the Roman
Amphitheatre and the Naumachia, which look exactly
like a ploughed field, as Roman ruins generally do.
My imagination is not lively enough to lead me into
ecstasies over such problematical nothingness. It is
something I leave to antiquarians, and I would rather
tell you of the walls of Toledo, which are visible to
the naked eye and marvellously picturesque. The
masonry unites very happily with the roughness of
the ground ; it is often very difficult to say where
the rock ends and the rampart begins. Each succes-
sive civilisation has worked at them. Here a piece of
wall is Roman, a door is Gothic, and the battlements

^^6

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TOLEDO

are Moorish. - The whole of the portion of the ram-
parts which stretches from the Cambron Gate to the
Visagra Gate (via sacra\ where the Roman road
probably ended, was built by a Gothic king, Wamba.
Every stone has its history.

Toledo stands out nobly upon the horizon, seated
on its rocky throne with its girdle of towers and its
crown of churches. It is impossible to imagine a
firmer or sterner profile, richer in colour and more
positively preserving the mediaeval aspect. I gazed
upon it for more than an hour, seeking to satisfy my
eyes and to impress deep in my memory the outlines
of this admirable view. Night, alas ! came on too
soon, and we went to bed, for we were to start at
one in the morning in order to escape the great heat
of the day.

197

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

GRANADA

WE had to go through Madrid again to take
the Granada stage-coach. We might have
caught it at Aranjuez, but in that case we ran the
risk of finding every seat taken.

But Madrid was unbearable, and the two days we
had to spend in it seemed to us two centuries long,
at least. We dreamed of nothing but orange trees,
lemon trees, cachuchas, castanets, bodices, and pictur-
esque costumes, for everybody had given us marvellous
accounts of Andalusia, with that somewhat boastful
emphasis which Spaniards will never get rid of, any
more than the French Gascons.

The longed for moment came at last, for everything
comes, even the day you desire to see, and we started
in a very comfortable coach drawn by a troop of
vigorous mules, with coats clipped and shining,
which went at a great speed. The coach was lined
with nankeen and provided with green blinds and
curtains. It appeared to us supremely elegant after

GRANADA

the vile galleys, sillas, volantes, and coaches in which
we had been jolted up to this time, and really it would
have been a very commodious vehicle but for the lime-
kiln temperature, which burned us up in spite of our
constantly moving fans and the extreme thinness of
our clothing.

The environs of Madrid are desolate, bare, and
burned up, although less stony on this side than when
coming from Guadarrama ; the country, which is
uneven rather than hilly, rises and falls monotonously
without any other feature than powdery, chalky vil-
lages scattered here and there over the general aridity,
and which would never be noticed did not the square
church-tower attract attention. Spires are scarce in
Spain, and the ordinary form of steeples is a four-
square tower. At every cross-road gloomy crosses
spread out their sinister arms ; from time to time ox-
carts come along, the driver asleep under his mantle,
fierce-looking mounted peasants with muskets at the
saddlebow. At midday the heavens are the colour
of molten lead ; the soil of a powdery gray with spar-
kles of light, scarcely assumes an azure tint in the
farthest distance ; there is not a clump of trees, not
a shrub, not a drop of water in the bed of the dried-

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up torrent, nothing to rest the eye and the mind.
The only shelter which can be got from the burning
rays of the sun is that of the narrow line of bluish
shade projected by the mules. It is true that we were
well mto mid-July, which is not just the time to
enjoy a cool trip through Spain, but we believe that
countries should be visited in their most characteristic
season, Spain in summer and Russia in winter.

There is nothing worth mentioning until the royal
residence at Aranjuez is reached. It is a chateau built
of brick with stone facings, producing a red and
white effect, with great slate roofs, pavilions, and
vanes, which recall buildings of the days of Henry IV
and Louis XIII, or the palace of Fontainebleau and
the houses of the Place Royale in Paris. The Tagus,
which is crossed by a hanging bridge, maintains the
vegetation in a condition of verdure which is greatly
admired by the Spaniards, and allows Northern trees
to grow vigorously. At Aranjuez are elms, ashes,
birches, and aspens, as strange there as here would
be Indian figs, or aloes and palms.

We were shown a gallery constructed expressly to
enable Godoy, the famous Prince of Peace, to pass
from his mansion to the palace. On leaving, the

200

GRANADA

bull-fight arena is seen on the left. It is of rather
a monumental form. While we were changing
mules, we hurried to the market-place to buy oranges
and eat ices, or rather, snow flavoured with citron, in
one of those open-air refreshment-stalls, as common
m Spain as wineshops are in France. Instead of
drinking glasses of bad wine or nips of brandy, the
peasant and herb-seller of the market-place indulge in
a bebida helada which does not steal away their brains
and turn them into brutes. The absence of drunken-
ness among the country people here makes them much
superior to the corresponding class in our so-called
civilised countries.

The name Aranjuez, which is derived from ara
"Jovh^ indicates clearly enough that the palace was
built upon the site of a former temple to Jupiter.
We had not time to visit the interior, and we regretted
it but little, for all palaces are alike. So are all
courtiers. Originality is to be found only among
the people, and the rabble alone seems to have pre-
served the privilege of poetry.

From Aranjuez to Ocana, the landscape, without
being remarkable, is nevertheless more picturesque.
Hills of fine appearance, well lighted, diversify the

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

sides ot the road, when the whirlwind of dust in
which the coach is galloping, enclosed like a god
within its cloud, clears up, blown by some favourable
wind, and enables you to see the details. The road,
although badly kept, is good enough, thanks to the
marvellous climate, in which rain is scarcely known,
and the small number of carriages, most of the trans-
portation being done by beasts of burden.

We were to have supper and to sleep at Ocana
while waiting for the royal mail in order to have the
advantage of its escort, for we were soon to enter
La Mancha, at that time infested by bands of brigands.
We stopped at an inn, outwardly good-looking, with
a galleried courtyard covered with a superb awning,
the cloth of which, either double or single, formed
symmetrical patterns through its greater or less
transparency. Myrtles, pomegranates and jessamine,
planted in pots of red clay, brightened and perfumed
this inner court, which was lighted with a dim, soft,
mysterious light. The patio is a charming invention.
You have more coolness and space than in your
room ; you can walk or read in it ; you can be
alone or in company; it is a neutral ground where
people meet, and where, without having to submit

GRANADA

to the boredom of formal visits and introductions, you
get to know each other and become somewhat inti-
mate ; and when, as in Granada or Sevilla, there
is the additional pleasure of an artificial fountain, I
know nothing more delightful, especially in a country
where the thermometer indicates tropical heat.

While waiting for the mail, we indulged in a siesta.
That is a habit which one must necessarily acquire in
Spain, for the heat from two to five in the afternoon
is beyond the conception of a Parisian, The paving-
stones are red-hot, like the knockers of the doors, fire
seems to rain down from heaven, the grain bursts
in the ear, the earth cracks like the enamel of an
overheated stove, the crickets sing with greater vivac-
ity than ever, and the little air which is wafted
around seems to issue from the brazen mouth of
a furnace. The shops are closed, and for all the
money in the world you could not induce a trades-
man to sell you anything. Dogs and Frenchmen,
as the vulgar saying expresses it, are alone to be met
with in the streets. The guides, even if you were
to present them with Havana cigars or a ticket to the
bull-fight, — two things which are particularly attractive
to a Spanish guide, — would refuse to take you to

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the meanest of monuments. The only thing you can
do is to sleep like other people, and you very soon
make up your mind to it; for what are you going
to do if you are the only waking person in the midst
of a sleeping nation ?

Our rooms, which were whitewashed, were per-
fectly clean, the insects which had been described
to us as swarming everywhere, had not yet put in
an appearance, and our sleep was untroubled by any
many-footed nightmare. At five in the afternoon
we rose to take a turn before supper. Ocana is not
very rich in monuments, and its chief title to fame
is a desperate attack by Spanish troops on a French
redoubt. The redoubt was taken, but most of the
battalion perished upon the field. The heroes were
buried each where he had fallen. Their ranks had
been so well kept, in spite of the storm of shot, that
they may be traced by the regularity of the graves.
Diamante wrote a play entitled " The Hercules of
Ocaiia," no doubt composed for some athlete of prodi-
gious strength. It came to our mind as we passed
through Ocana.

The harvest was ending at the time when grain with
us is just beginning to turn yellow, and the sheaves

204

GRANADA

were being carried to great threshing-floors of beaten
earth ; a sort of circus, on which horses and mules sepa-
rate the grain from the chafF by the stamping of their
hoofs. The animals are harnessed to a sort of sledge,
on which stands, in a bold, fine attitude, the man
charged with directing the operation. It takes a great
deal of coolness and firmness to keep upright on this
frail machine, which is borne along by three or four
horses at top speed. A painter of Leopold Robert's
school could make good use of these scenes, so Biblical
and primitive in their simplicity. In this place the
tanned heads, the sparkling eyes, the madonna-like
faces, the characteristic costumes, the blue of the sky,
and the splendour of the sun would be as ready to
his hand as in Italy. The heavens that night were
of a rosy, milky blue ; the fields as far as the eye
could reach stretched out in one vast surface of pale
gold, on which stood out, like islands in an ocean of
light, ox-carts disappearing under the sheaves. The
chimera of a shadeless picture so eagerly sought for
by the Chinese was realised ; everything was light and
brightness, the deepest shadow was no more than
pearly gray.

We were at last served with a decent supper, — at

205

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least, it seemed such to our appetite, — in a low room
adorned with small paintings on glass of rather awk-
ward Venetian rococo. We had to wait until half-
past two in the afternoon for the arrival of the
stage-coach, for it would not have been prudent to start
without it. We had besides a special escort of four
cavalrymen armed with carbines, pistols and long
swords. They were tall fellows with dark faces framed
in by huge black whiskers, pointed hats, broad gray
belts, velvet breeches, and leather gaiters, who looked
more like robbers than constabulary. It was an excel-
lent idea to take them with us, as thus we should not
have to meet them.

Twenty soldiers packed into a galley followed the
stage-coach. The galley is a springless cart with two
or four wheels. An esparto net takes the place of
flooring. This concise description will give you an
idea of the position of these poor wretches, obliged to
stand and hang on to the side of the racks to avoid
falling over each other. At a speed of twelve miles an
hour, with terrific heat and a vertical sun, you will
confess it takes a stock of heroic joviality to consider
such a situation comical ; and yet these poor soldiers,
in ragged uniforms, foodless, with nothing to drink but

206

GRANADA

the tepid w^ter in their gourds, and jolted about like
rats in a trap, laughed and sang all the way. The
sobriety and endurance of the Spaniards are marvellous ;
they are like the Arabs in this respect, it is impossible
to carry farther forgetfulness of physical discomfort, —
but though they had neither shoes nor bread, they had
a guitar.

All this portion of the kingdom of Toledo which we
were traversing is dreadfully barren, influenced by its
nearness to La Mancha, Don Quixote's country, which
is the most desolate, forlorn province in Spain. We
soon passed Guardia, an insignificant little place of
most wretched aspect.

Puerto Lapiche is composed of a few semi-ruinous
hovels perched low upon the slope of a cracked, worn
hillside, the ground of which has become friable by
dint of being sunburned, and falls away in curiously
shaped gaps. It is the very acme of aridity and deso-
lation ; everything is the colour of cork or pumice-
stone; the fire of heaven seems to have passed over the
spot. A gray powder as fine as ground sandstone is
dusted over the whole picture. The wretchedness is
the more heart-breaking that the brilliancy of an im-
placable sky brings out all its poverty ; the cloudy

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

melancholy of the North pales by the side of the bril-
liant wretchedness of warmer countries.

The sight of such miserable hovels fills one with pity
for the robbers who are obliged to live by their wits in
a country where you cannot raise an egg in a circuit of
thirty miles. The stage-coaches and the galley-trains
are really an insufficient resource for them, and the
brigands who cruise about La Mancha must often be
satisfied to sup on a handful of the sweet acorns which
Sancho Panza delighted in ; for how can you rob people
who have no money and no pockets, the furniture of
whose houses consists of four walls, and whose sole
utensils are a stewpan and a chair ? To sack such
villages strikes me as one of the gloomiest fancies
which can occur to robbers out of work.

A little beyond Puerto Lapiche we entered La
Mancha, and saw on the right two or three windmills
which claim to have successfully withstood the charge
of Don Quixote. At the time we saw them, they
were slowly turning their flabby sails under the impulse
of a broken-winded breeze. The venta, where we
stopped to drain two or three jars of fresh water, also
boasts of having lodged the immortal hero of Cer-
vantes' novel.
~~~ 208 ~

GRANADA

We were starving when we reached Manzanares at
midnight. We had supper about two in the morn-
ing, to provide which half the village had to be
awakened.

We got back into the coach, we went to sleep, and
when we opened our eyes we were near Valdepeilas, a
place famous for its wine. The ground and the hills,
studded with stones, were of a peculiar red tone, and
we could just perceive, on the horizon, the dentelated
crests of the hills, which stood out very sharply in spite
of the great distance.

Valdepenas is very commonplace. Its whole repu-
tation is due to its vineyards. Its name, which means
stony valley, is quite accurate.

At Santa Cruz we were asked to purchase all sorts
of pocket knives — navajas. Santa Cruz and Alba-
cete are famous for fancy cutlery. The navajas,
made in the most characteristic Arabic and barbaric
taste, have open-worked handles through which show
red, green, or blue spangles. Coarse inlaid work, but
designed with dash, adorns the blade, which is fish-
shaped and always very sharp. Most of them have
mottoes, such as " Soy de uno solo " (I am one man's),
or " Cuando esta v'lvora plca^ tio hay remed'io en la botica "

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(When this adder stings, there is no antidote in the
pharmacy). Sometimes the blade is rayed with three
parallel lines inlaid in red, which gives it a most
formidable appearance. The size of the navaja varies
from three inches to three feet in length. Some majos
(peasants of the better class) carry some which, when
opened, are as long as a sabre. A spring or a ring to
which a turn is given secures the blade in a straight
line. The navaja is the favourite weapon of the
Spaniards, especially of the country people. They use
it with incredible dexterity, wrapping their cloak around
their arm by way of buckler. The science of the
navaja has its professors like fencing, and navaja-
teachers are as numerous in Andalusia as fencing-
masters in Paris. Each navaja expert has his secret
lunges and his own particular strokes. It is said that
adepts can tell by looking at a wound to what artist
it is due, just as we can tell a painter by the touch of
his brush.

The undulations of the ground now became more
marked and more frequent ; we were constantly ascend-
ing and descending. We were approaching the Sierra
Morena, which bounds the kingdom of Andalusia ;
beyond that line of violet-coloured mountains was the

GRANADA

paradise of our dreams. The stones were already
growing into rocks, the hills into terraced groups.
Thistles six and seven feet high rose by the roadside
like the halberds of invisible soldiers. Although I
claim not to be an ass, I am very fond of thistles, a
taste which, for the matter of that, I share with butter-
flics. These surprised me. They were superb plants
full of delightful suggestions for ornament. There is
no arabesque or scroll work in Gothic architecture
which is more cleanly cut or more finely chiselled.
From time to time we could see in the neighbouring fields
great yellow spots as if sacks of cut straw had been
emptied there, but when we drew near the straw rose
with a whirl and flew away noisily. They were flights
of grasshoppers resting; there must have been millions
of them. It made the country smack strangely of
Egypt.

Not far from the venta, on the right of the road,
were some pillars on which were exposed the heads of
criminals, a sight which is always reassuring and proves
that one is in a civilised country. The road ascended,
zigzagging constantly ; we were about to traverse the
Puerto de los perros (Dogs' Gate). It is a narrow gorge,
a break made in the mountain wall by the torrent.

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

which leaves just room enough for the road which runs
by its side. The Dogs' Gate is so called because it is
the way through which the defeated Moors left Anda-
lusia, bearing with them the happiness and civilisation
of Spain. Spain, which is as close to Africa as Greece
to Asia, was never intended for European manners -,
the genius of the East shows there in every form, and
it is perhaps a pity that it did not remain Moorish and
Mohammedan.

It is impossible to imagine anything more pictur-
esque and grand than this gate of Andalusia. The
gorge is cut in huge rocks of red marble, the gigantic
layers of which rise one above another with almost
architectural regularity. The enormous blocks, with
broad transversal fissures, the marble veins of the
mountain, a sort of terrestrial anatomical prepara-
tion which enables one to study the structure of
the globe, are of a size which makes the mightiest
Egyptian granite constructions appear microscopical ;
in the crevices grow green oaks and huge cork trees,
which seem no bigger than tufts of grass on an ordi-
nary wall. As the centre of the gorge is reached,
the vegetation becomes denser and forms an impene-
trable jungle, through which one occasionally catches a

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GRANADA

glimpse of the sparkling waters of the torrent. The
slope is so steep on the right side that it has been
thought prudent to provide it with a parapet, else
a carriage, going always at full speed and difficult to
steer on account of the frequent turns, might very well
perform a perilous leap of from five to six hundred
feet at the least.

It was in the Sierra Morena that the Knight of the
Sad Countenance, after the manner of Amadis on
Poverty Rock, performed the famous penitence which
consisted in turning somersaults, in his shirt, upon the
sharpest rocks, and that Sancho Panza, the practical
man, who represents common-sense by the side of
lofty madness, found Cardeno's portmanteau so well
lined with ducats and fine shirts. The remembrance
of Don Quixote comes up at every step in Spain,
so thoroughly national is Cervantes' work and so
completely do his two heroes incarnate the Spanish
character : chivalrous enthusiasm and an adventurous
spirit united to much practical common-sense and to a
sort of jolly, caustic, and clever good-nature.

Once we had crossed the Sierra Morena, the char-
acter of the landscape changed completelv. It was
as if one had suddenly passed from Europe into Africa.

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The adders, seeking their holes, left their zigzag tracks
upon the fine sand of the road ; the aloes began to
send up their great thorny swords by the edge of
the ditches ; their broad, fleshy, thick, ashy-gray leaves
at once impart a different physiognomy to the land-
scape. You feel that you are really elsewhere, that
you have left Paris for good. It is not so much
the difference in climate, in architecture, and cos-
tumes, which makes you aware that you are in a
foreign country, as the presence of these great plants
of torrid climates which we are accustomed to see
in hot-houses only. The laurels, the green oaks,
the cork trees, the metallic, varnished-leaved fig-trees
have a freedom, a robustness, a wildness, which mark
a climate in which nature is stronger than man and
can do without him.

At our feet was stretched like a vast panorama the
beautiful kingdom of Andalusia. The grandeur of the
view recalled the sea. Chains of mountains levelled
by distance rolled with undulations of infinite gentle-
ness like long azure billows ; broad masses of white
mist lay between ; here and there brilliant sunbeams
tipped with gold a nearer hill, and clothed it with
a thousand changing colours ; other slopes, curiously

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GRANADA

furrowed, resembled the stuffs one sees in old pic-
tures, yellow on one side and blue on the other :
and over all a flood of scintillating, splendid light,
such as must have filled the terrestrial paradise ;
light poured over that ocean of mountains like liquid
gold and silver ; every obstacle it met breaking it up
into a phosphorescent, spangled foam. It was grander
than the broadest horizons of the Englishman Martin,
and a thousand times more beautiful. The infinite
in light is far more sublime and wonderful than the
infinite in obscurity.

Aloes, more and more African in height, still
showed on our right, and on the left a long wreath
of flowers of a most brilliant rose sparkling in emerald
foliage marked the meanderings of the bed of the
dried-up brook. Profiting by a halt at a relay, my
comrade hastened to these flowers and brought back
a huge bunch of them. They were rose laurels,
of incomparable freshness and beauty. After the
rose laurels, came, like a melancholy reflection after
a bright burst of laughter, gray woods of olive trees,
the pale foliage of which recalls the whitish green
of northern willows and matches admirably the ashy
tint of the ground. This foliage, of sombre, aus-

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tere and sweet tone, was very wisely chosen by the
ancients, who so skilfully appreciated natural har-
monies, as the symbol of peace and wisdom.

It was about four o'clock when we reached Baylen,
famous for the disastrous capitulation which bears its
name. We were to spend the night there, and while
waiting for supper, we walked about the town and its
neighbourhood.

I was struck by the strange colour of the church
at Baylen, which does not go back much beyond
the sixteenth century. Stone and marble, baked by
the Spanish sun, instead of blackening, as they do
in our damp climate, take on reddish tones of delight-
ful warmth and vigour, turning often saffron and
purple, like vine leaves towards the close of autumn.
By the side of the church, above a low wall gilded
with the warmest tints, a palm tree — the first one
which I had ever seen growing in the open ground —
proudly spread its leaves against the dark azure of the
sky. This unexpected palm tree, a sudden revelation
of the East, at the corner of the road had a sin-
gular effect upon me ; I expected to see, out-lined
against the sunset sky, the long necks of camels and
the floating white burnouses of an Arab caravan.

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GRANADA

The somewhat picturesque ruins of some old fortifi-
cations included a tower, in sufficient repair to allow
of its being ascended with the help of feet and hands
and the projections of the stones. We were rec-
ompensed for our trouble by the most magnificent
prospect. The town of Baylcn, with its tiled roofs,
its red churches, and its white houses clustering at
the foot of the tower like a flock of goats, formed
an admirable foreground ; beyond, waves of shadow
passed over the golden cornfields, and in the far
distance, beyond many a mountain range, shone like
a silver streak the distant crest of the Sierra Nevada.
The lines of snow, catching the light, sparkled with
prismatic flashes, and the sun, like a vast golden
wheel of which the disc was the hub, sent out like
spokes its flaming rays through a sky filled with all
shades from agate to aventurine.

The inn where we were to sleep consisted of a large
building containing one room with a chimney-place at
each end, a ceiling of beams blackened and varnished
by smoke, mangers on either side for the horses, mules,
and asses, and for travellers a few small side-rooms,
containing a bed formed of three planks laid upon two
trestles and covered with one of those pellicles of linen

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between which are scattered a few lumps of wool,
which innkeepers, with their characteristic, cool effron-
tery, claim are mattresses. Nevertheless, we snored
like Epimenides and the Seven Sleepers rolled into
one.

We started very early to avoid the heat, and again
beheld the lovely rose laurel, bright as glory and fresh
as love, which had delighted us the night before. Soon
our road was barred by the muddy, yellow waters of
the Guadalquivir. We were ferried across and started
on the road to Jaen. On the left we were shown, in
a blaze of light, the Torrequebradilla tower, and before
long we perceived the quaint outline of Jaen, the capi-
tal of the kingdom of that name.

A huge ochre-coloured mountain, tawny as a lion's
skin, powdered with light, gilded by the sun, rise;-'
ibruptly in the centre of the town. The quaint and
picturesque lines of massive towers and the long zig-
zags of fortifications mark its bare sides. The cathe-
dral, a vast mass which from a distance seems larger
than the city itself, rises proudly, an artificial mountain
by the side of the natural one. The cathedral, which
is in the Renaissance style and boasts of possessing the

very handkerchief on which Veronica received the im-
— -

GRANADA

print of out Lord's face, was built by the dukes of
iMedina Coeli. No doubt it is beautiful, but we had
thought of it as older and more remarkable.

It was at Jaen that I saw the greatest number of
national and picturesque costumes. The men generally
wear blue velvet breeches ornamented with silver
filigree buttons ; rond^ gaiters adorned with inlets,
aiguillettes, and arabesques of darker leather, — the most
stylish way of wearing them is to button the top and
bottom buttons only, so as to show the leg, — broad
yellow or red silk sashes, an embroidered brown cloth
jacket, a blue or brown cloak, and a broad-brimmed,
pointed hat with velvet and silk tufts complete a
costume which resembles the traditional dress of
Italian brigands. Others wear what is called a sporting
costume made of tanned buckskin and green velvet.
A few of the women of the lower classes wear red
cloaks which show brightly against the darker back-
ground of the crowd. The strange dress, the sun-
burnt complexions, the flashing eyes, the strong faces,
the impassible and calm attitudes of these majos, more
numerous than anywhere else, impart to the population
of Jaen an aspect more African than European ; and the
illusion is greatly increased by the heat of the climate,

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the dazzling whiteness of the houses (which are white-
washed according to Arab fashion), the tawny colour
of the ground, and the unchanging blue of the heavens.
The Spaniards have a saying about Jaen, " The town
is ugly, and the people are wicked ; " with which no
painter will agree. Here, as with us, most people
consider a town is fine when it has streets laid out at
right angles, and provided with a sufficient number of
lamps and townspeople.

On leaving Jaen we entered a valley which con-
tinues as far as the Vega of Granada. At the outset it
is arid : barren mountains, crumbling away with dry-
ness, burn you with their white glare like reflecting
mirrors ; there is no trace of vegetation save a few
colourless tufts of fennel. Soon, however, the valley
deepens and narrows ; springs begin to show ; vegeta-
tion appears ; coolness and shadow are again met with.
The Jaen River flows swiftly at the bottom of the valley
between the stones and rocks which obstruct it, and bar
its way every moment. The road follows it closely in
its windings, for in mountainous countries the torrents
are still the most successful engineers in tracing a
line of road, and the best thing to do is to trust to their
guidance.

GRANADA

At one pkce the valley narrows gradually, and the
cliffs close in so as to leave room for the river only.
Formerly carriages were obliged to descend into and
travel along the bed of the torrent itself, a rather
dangerous method on account of the holes and stones,
and the depth of the water, which in winter rises a
great deal. To remedy this difficulty one of the rocks
has been blasted, and a fairly long tunnel cut through it
as on a railway. This somewhat important work is
only a few years old. Beyond, the valley broadens out
again, and the road is no longer obstructed.

There is a break of some miles in my remembrances.
Overcome by the heat, which the weather, that was
becoming stormy, made absolutely suffocating, I fell
asleep. When I awoke again night, which comes so
swiftly in Southern climates, had entirely fallen. A
furious wind raised whirlwinds of burning dust. That
wind must have been a near relative of the African
sirocco, and I do not understand why we were not
stifled. The shapes of things disappeared in its dusty
haze ; the sky, usually so splendid on summer nights,
looked like the vault of an oven ; it was impossible to
see two steps ahead. We entered Granada at about
two in the morning, and alighted at the Fonda del

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Comercio, a so-called French hotel in which there were
no sheets, and where we slept in our clothes on the
table; but these small troubles did not affect us much.
We were in Granada, and in a few hours we should
see the Alhambra and the Generalife.

The first thing we did was to have our guide take
us to a casa de pupilos^ that is, a private house which
receives boarders ; for as we proposed to stay some
time in Granada, the inferior fare of the Fonda del
Comercio did not suit us.

From the top of our house, which was surmounted
by a sort of look-out, we could see, through clumps of
trees upon the crest of a hill, standing out sharply
against the blue sky, the massive towers of the fortress
of the Alhambra, which the sun coloured with tints of
the warmest and most intense red. The picture was
filled out by two tall cypresses close to each other,
whose black tops rose into the azure above the red
wzXh. You never lose sight of these cypresses ; whether
vou climb the snow-striped slopes of Mulhacen, or
whether you wander through the Vega or in the Sierra
Elvira, you always see them on the horizon, sombre
and motionless in the blue or golden vapour which
distance casts over the roofs of the city.

GRANADA

Granada is built upon three hills at one end of the
Vega. The Vermilion Towers, so called because of
their colour (^Torres Bermijas}^ and which it is claimed
are of Roman or even Phcenician origin, stand on the
nearest and lowest of these hills ; the Alhambra, which
is a city in itself, covers the second and highest hill
with its square towers connected by high walls, and
vast sub-structures which contain within their limits
gardens, groves, houses, and squares. The Albaicin is
situated upon the third height, separated from the
others by a deep ravine full of vegetation, — cacti,
colocynths, pistachios, pomegranates, and rose laurels,
and a wealth of flowers, while at the bottom rolls the
Darro with a current as swift as an Alpine torrent.
The Darro, which is a gold-bearing stream, traverses
the town now under the open sky, now under bridges
so wide that they should rather be called vaults, and
joins, in the Vega, at a short distance from the Ala-
meda, the Genii, which is satisfied with being a silver-
bearing stream. The course of the river through the
city is called Carrera del Darro, and from the balconies
of the houses which line it one enjoys a magnificent
prospect. The Darro is constantlv eating away its
banks, and causes frequent landslides.

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

The gardens called Carmenes del Darro, of which
charming descriptions are met with in Spanish and
Moorish poetry, lie on the banks of the Carrera as you
go up-stream towards the Avellanos Fountain,

The city is thus divided into four main quarters :
Antequeruela, which lies on the slopes of the hill, or
rather of the mountain crowned by the Alhambra ; the
Alhambra and its annex, the GeneraHfe ; the Albaicin,
formerly a vast fortress, now a ruined, uninhabited
quarter; and Granada proper, which stretches in the
plain around the Cathedral and the Bibarrambla Place,
and which forms a separate quarter.

Such, roughly, is the topographical aspect of Gra-
nada, traversed in its greatest breadth by the Darro, sur-
rounded on one side by the Genii which bathes the
Alameda or promenade, sheltered by the Sierra Nevada,
which one catches sight of at every street-end, and
which is brought so close, owing to the clearness of the
atmosphere, that it seems as if one could touch it with
the hand from the top of balconies and look-outs.

The general appearance of Granada falls short of
the idea which one has usually formed of it. In spite
of having already suffered many a disappointment, you
cannot bring yourself to remember that three or four

224

GRANADA

hundred years and innumerable commonplace people
have passed over the scene of so many romantic and
chivalrous actions ; you think of a semi-Moorish, semi-
Gothic city, in which traceried spires mingle with
minarets, and cupolas alternate with terraced roofs ;
vou expect to sec carved, ornamented houses, with coats
of arms and heroic mottoes ; quaint buildings, with
stories projecting one above the other, with protruding
beams and windows adorned with Persian carpets and
blue and white pots, — in a word, an opera scene
rcaiised and representing some marvellous prospect of
the Middle Ages.

The people you meet, dressed in modern costumes,
wearing stovepipe hats and frock coats, unconsciously
produce an unpleasant effect and appear more hideous
than they are ; for they really cannot go about for the
greater glory of local colour in alborjio-z of the days of
Boabdil, or in iron armour of the times of Ferdinand
and Isabella the Catholic. They insist, like nearly all
the townspeople In Spain, that they are not in the
least degree picturesque, and they seek to prove that
they are civilised by wearing trousers with straps ; that
is their main idea. They are afraid of being taken for
barbarians and of being considered behind the times,

15 225

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

and when the wild beauty of their country is extolled,
they humbly apologise for not yet having railroads and
steam-driven factories.

Granada, although fallen from its ancient splendour,
is bright, gay, animated. The inhabitants have a way
of reappearing and simulating in marvellous fashion a
numerous population. The carriages are handsomer
and more numerous than in Madrid. Andalusian vivac-
ity gives to the streets a life and animation unknown
to the serious Castilian walkers, who are as noiseless
as their own shadows. This is especially true of the
Carrera del Darro, the Zacatin, the Plaza Nueva,
the Calle de Gomeres, which leads to the Alhambra,
the Theatre Square, the bridges, the Alameda, and the
main streets. The rest of the city is traversed in every
direction by labyrinthine lanes three or four feet wide,
which are impassable to carriages, and accurately recall
the Moorish streets of Algiers. The only sound heard
there is the hoof of an ass or a mule striking sparks
from the shining paving-stones, or the monotonous
hum of a guitar strummed in some courtyard. The
balconies adorned with blinds, pots of flowers and
shrubs, or vines, the fine tendrils of which climb from
one window to another, the rose laurels which spread

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GRANADA

their dazzling blooms above the garden walls, the
strange play of light and shade which recall Decamps'
pictures of Turkish villages, the women seated on the
thresholds, the half-naked children tumbling around,
the asses which come and go covered with plumes and
tufts of wool, — impart to these lanes, which are
almost always steep and sometimes provided with steps,
a peculiar aspect which does not lack charm, and the
unexpectedness of which more than compensates for
their lack of regularity.

Victor Hugo, in his charming " Orientales," says of
Granada that —

" It paints its houses with the richest colours."
The remark is absolutely correct. The houses of
even well-to-do people are painted in the quaintest
fashion with imitation architectural features, grisaille
ornaments, and imitation bassi-relievi. It is a wealth of
panels, of scrolls, of bays, of flower pots, of volumes, of
medallions full of Burgundy roses, of ovals, of acanthi ;
of plump Cupids bearing all sorts of allegorical utensils,
upon apple-green, fawn, or pale-rose backgrounds ; in
a word, the highest expression of the rococo style. It
is difficult at first to believe that these painted facades
are genuine dwellings ; you cannot help feeling that

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

you are walking between stage settings. We had
already seen at Toledo facades painted in this fashion,
but they are far below those of Granada as regards the
fancifulness of the ornamentation and the strangeness
of the colouring. For my own part, I do not object to
this fashion, which is pleasant to the eye and contrasts
agreeably with the chalky tone of the whitewashed
walls.

We spoke just now of the townspeople who dress in
the French fashion, but the country people do not
follow Paris modes. They have preserved the pointed
hat with velvet brim adorned with silk tufts, or the
lower crown shaped somewhat like a turban ; the
jacket ornamented with embroidery and patches of
cloth of all colours on the elbows, facings, and collar,
which has a vaguely Turkish look ; the red or yellow
girdle ; the trousers with facings fastened with filigree
buttons or pillar-pieces soldered to a hook ; the leather
gaiters open on the side and showing the leg ; and the
whole costume is more brilliant, more ornamented,
more embroidered, more showy, more laden with
spangles and tinsel than in the other provinces. There
are also a good many costumes called vestido de
cazador or sporting-suits, of Cordova leather and blue

228

GRANADA

or green velvet with aiguillettes. It is very fashionable
to carry a cane or white stick forked at the end, four
feet long, on which you lean carelessly when you stop
to talk. No self-respecting majo would dare to appear
in public without his stick. 7Vo bandanas, the ends
of which hang from the pockets of the jacket, and a
long navaja stuck in the belt, not in front, but in the
middle of the back, mark the very ideal of elegance in
the popular man of fashion.

I was so taken with the costume that the very first
thing I did was to order one. I was introduced to
Don Juan Zapata, a man who enjoys a great reputa-
tion as a maker of national costumes, and who enter-
tained for dress coats and frock coats a hatred at least
equal to my own.

But Seiior Zapata felt towards his clothes as Car-
dillac felt towards his gems ; it grieved him a great deal
to hand them over to his clients. When he came to
try on my costume, he was so dazzled by the brilliancy
of the flower-pot which he had embroidered upon the
brown cloth in the centre of my back that he gave
himself up to mad delight and indulged in the wildest
extravagance. Then suddenly the thought of having
to leave this masterpiece in my hands cooled his hilarity

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

and at once turned him gloomy. On pretext of some
alterations to be made, he wrapped the jacket up in his
bandana, handed it to his apprentice, — for a Spanish
tailor would consider himself dishonoured if he carried
a bundle himself, — and went off as if the devil
were after him, casting on me a fierce and ironical
glance. The next day he came back alone, and draw-
ing from a leather purse the money I had paid him, he
told me that it pained him too much to part with the
jacket, and he preferred to give me back my money.
It was only when I insisted upon the fact that this cos-
tume would give a high opinion of his talents and gain
him a great reputation in Paris that he consented to let
it go.

The women have had the good sense not to give up
the mantilla, which is the most delightful headgear that
can possibly frame in a Spanish face. They go
through the streets to the promenade without bonnets,
with a red carnation on each temple, with their black
lace arranged around their face, and they glide along
the walls, using their fans with incomparable grace and
skill. A bonnet is a rare thing in Granada. It is true
that the more elegant ladies have in some hidden band-
box a yellow or crimson concern which they keep in

230

GRANADA

reserve for great occasions ; but thank Heaven ! such
occasions are very rare, and the hideous bonnets show
in the light of day only on the Queen's feast day or at
the ceremonies in the high school. May our fashions
never invade the City of the Caliphs, and the terrible
threat contained in these two words painted in black at
the entrance of a square, " Modista francesca," never be
carried out ! It is mistaking the meaning of creation
to insist upon imposing the same livery on men in all
climates ; it is one of the innumerable mistakes com-
mitted by European civilisation.

The Alameda at Granada is unquestionably one of
the pleasantest places in the world. It is called Paseo
del Salon (the Drawing-room), — a curious name for a
walk. Imagine a long avenue of several rows of trees,
of a green unique in Spain, closed at each end by a
monumental fountain, the basins of which are upheld
on the shoulders of aquatic deities curiously formed and
delightfully barbaric. These fountains, unlike most
such erections, pour out water in broad streams which
vanish in fine spray and moist vapour, casting around
a delightful coolness. In the side avenues run, en-
closed in coloured- pebble beds, brooklets of crystal
transparency. A great flower-garden adorned with jets

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

of water, full of shrubs and flowers, myrtles, rose trees
jessamine, all the wealth of the Granada flora, fills up
the space between the Salon and the Genii, and extends
as far as the bridge constructed by General Sebastian!
at the time of the French invasion. The Genii comes
from the Sierra Nevada in its marble bed through laurel
woods of incomparable beauty. Glass and crystal are
too opaque, too thick by comparison to give an idea of
the limpidity of the water, which but the night before
stretched in silver sheets upon the white slopes of the
Sierra Nevada. It is a torrent of molten diamonds.

In the evening between seven and eight, meet at the
Salon the fashionable people of Granada. The car-
riages, usually empty, drive along the road, for Span-
iards are very fond of walking, and in spite of their
pride deign to take themselves out for a stroll. Noth-
ing is more agreeable than to see coming and going in
small groups young women and young girls wearing
mantillas, bare-armed, with natural flowers in their
hair, satin shoes on their feet, fans in their hands,
followed at a short distance by their friends and lovers ;
for in Spain it is not customary to take a lady's arm.
The habit of walking alone gives the women a freedom,
an elegance, and an ease of manner which our ladies,

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GRANADA

always hanging to some man's arm, lack. This con-
stant separation of men and women, at least in public,
smacks already of the East.

A sight which Northern people cannot have any idea
of is the Alameda in Granada at sunset. The Sierra
Nevada, the crests of which surround the city on that
side, is bathed in the loveliest tints. All the scarps, all
the summits, struck by the light, turn rose, but a daz-
zling rose, ideal, fabulous, silvered over, rippled with
iris and opaline reflections which would make the
purest colours on a painter's palette look muddy :
pearly gray tones, ruby gleams, veins of agate and
aventurine which would challenge the fairy gems of
the "Thousand and One Nights." Valleys, crevices,
projections, every spot which the beams of the sun do
not reach, turn into a blue which matches the azure of
the skv, of ice, of lapis lazuli, of sapphire. The con-
trast of tone between the light and the shadow has an
astonishing effect, — the mountain seems to have
wrapped itself in changing, spangled, silver-ribbed silk.
Little by little the rich colours die awav and melt into
violet half-tints, the shadows invade the lower slopes,
the light withdraws to the highest summits and the
whole plain has long been plunged in darkness when

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the silver diadem of the Sierra still sparkles in the clear
sky, glowing in the last beam of the setting sun.

People walk up and down a few times more, and
then scatter, some to take sherbet and agraz at Don
Pedro Hurtado's cafe, where you get the best ices in
Granada, others to go to a tertulia at the houses of
their friends or acquaintance. This is the brightest
and most animated time in Granada. The open-air
shops of the aguadores and ice-cream venders are
lighted up with an infinite number of lamps and lan-
terns. The street lamps and the lamps lighted in front
of the statues of the Madonna rival the stars in number
and brilliancy, and if it happens to be moonlight, you
can easily read the smallest print; the light has turned
blue instead of being yellow, and that is all.

We were soon well known in Granada, and led a
most delightful life. It is impossible to be welcomed
more cordially, frankly, and pleasantly. In five or six
days we were quite intimate, and according to Spanish
custom we were called by our first names. At Gra-
nada I was Don Teofilo, my comrade was Don Euge-
nic, and we were free to call by their names Carmen,
Teresa, Gala, etc., the young ladies and girls in the
houses in which we were received as guests. This

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GRANADA

familiarity goes very well with the most polished
manners and the most respectful attentions. So every
evening we went to a tertulia in one house or another
from eight to midnight. The tertulias take place in
the alabaster-columned patio adorned with its jet of
water, the basin of which is surrounded by flower-pots
and boxes of shrubs, on the leaves of which the drops
of water fall with a pleasant sound. Five or six lamps
are hung along the walls, sofas and straw or wicker-
work chairs are placed in the galleries, the piano is in
one corner, in another are the card-tables.

On entering, each guest greets the master and mis-
tress of the house, who do not fail, after the usual
exchange of civilities, to offer you a cup of chocolate
which it is proper to refuse, and a cigarette which is
occasionally accepted. Having fulfilled this duty, you
go to the corner of the patio and join the group which
most attracts you. The parents and elders play at
trecillo ; the young fellows talk with the girls, recite the
verses they have written during the day, and are scolded
and punished for crimes which they may have com-
mitted the day before, such as having danced too often
with a pretty cousin or cast too bright a glance towards
a forbidden balcony. If they have been very good, in

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exchange for the rose they have brought, they are given
a carnation from the waist or from the hair, and a
glance or a slight pressure of the fingers answers their
clasp when the company ascends to the balcony to hear
the band play the retreat.

Love-making seems to be the only occupation of
Granada. You have not spoken more than two or
three times to a girl before the whole city declares
that you are engaged, and chaffs you about your pre-
tended passion in the most innocent fashion, but never-
theless somewhat disquietingly, as it calls up visions of
marriage. Gallantry is more apparent than real, for in
spite of languorous glances, burning looks, tender and
passionate conversation, sweet demonstrations, and the
"darling" prefixed to your name, you must not imagine
too readily that you are a lady-killer.

When conversation begins to fail, one of the gentle-
men takes down a guitar and begins to sing, striking
the strings with his nails and marking the rhythm with
the palm of his hand on the body of the instrument,
some bright Andalusian song or some comic stanzas,
mingled with ays and olas quaintly modulated, which
produce a singular effect. A lady sits down to the
piano and plays a piece by Bellini, who seems to be

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a favourite composer among the Spaniards, or sings a
ballad by Breton de los Herreros, the great ballad-
writer of Madrid.

The evening closes with a little improvised dance,
but they do not dance, alas, the jota, the fandango, or
the bolero, these dances being left to the peasants, the
servants, and the gipsies. Instead they have quad-
rilles and rigadoons, and occasionally waltzes. One
evening, however, at our request, two young ladies of
the family were kind enough to dance a bolero ; but
first they insisted on having the windows and also
the door of the mansion closed, though these usually
remained open, so greatly did thev fear to be accused
of bad taste and local colour. The Spaniards are
generally annoyed when spoken to about cachuchas,
castanets, majos, manolas, monks, smugglers, and bull-
fights, though at bottom thev are really very fond of
them as national and characteristic. They ask you,
with an air of annoyance, whether you think that
they are not as civilised as vou, — so far has the
deplorable mania for the imitation of the English and
the French penetrated everywhere. Spain at the pre-
sent day is inimical to all colour and poetry. Of
course it is to be understood that we are speaking

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

of the so-called enlightened classes, the people who
inhabit the cities.

The dancing over, you take leave of the masters of
the house, saying to the lady, " A los pies de Vd^'' to
the husband, " Boso d Vd la ?nam" to which they
reply, " Buenm noches" and " Beso d Vd la suya" and
on the threshold, as a last farewell, " Hasta manana "
(Till to-morrow), which is equivalent to asking you to
come again. While quite familiar, the common peo-
ple themselves, the peasants, and the rascals practise
towards each other an exquisite politeness very different
from the coarse manners of our rabble. It is true that
a knife-thrust may follow on the heels of an offensive
word, which makes people very circumspect. It is to
be noticed that French politeness, formerly proverbial,
departed since swords ceased to be worn ; the laws
against duelling will end by making us the most ill-
mannered people in the world.

On the homeward way you meet under the windows
and balconies the young gallants wrapped in their
cloaks and busy in pilar la pamha^ that is, in chatting
with their betrothed through the gratings. These
nocturnal conversations often last until two and three
in the morning, which is not surprising since the

GRANADA

Spaniards spend a portion of the day in sleeping.
You may also happen upon a serenade composed of
three or four musicians, but usually it is the lover
alone, who sings couplets, accompanying himself upon
the guitar, with his sombrero pulled down oyer his eyes
and one foot placed on a stone or a post. Formerly
two serenades in the same street would not have
tolerated each other ; the first-comer claimed the right
to remain alone and forbade any other guitar than his
own to strum in the silence of night. The claim was
maintained with the sword or the knife, unless the
watch came along; then the two rivals joined in
charging the watch, leaving their private quarrel to
be settled later. The susceptible character of sere-
naders has been much softened, and each one can
scrape and hum, as the saying is, under the window
of his fair in perfect peace and contentment.

If the night happens to be dark, you have to be care-
ful not to step upon some worthy hidalgo rolled up in
his cloak, which stands him in the way of house, bed,
and garment. On summer nights the granite steps of
the Theatre are covered with numbers of fellows who
have no other home. Every one has his own step,
which is like his apartment, and where one is sure to

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

find him. Men sleep there under the blue vault of
the sky with the stars for night-lights, safe from
insects and from the stings of mosquitoes, thanics to
the toughness of their tanned skins bronzed by the
suns of Andalusia and as dark unquestionably as that
of the darkest mulattoes.

We were so passionately fond of the Alhambra that,
not satisfied with going there every day, we desired to
live there altogether; not in the neighbouring houses,
which are rented at very high prices to the English,
but within the palace itself; and thanks to the pro-
tection of our Granada friends, we were told that,
though a formal permission could not be granted to
us, our presence there would not be taken notice of.
We spent four days and four nights in the place, and
they were unquestionably the most delightful days of
my life.

To reach the Alhambra, we shall, if you please,
cross the Bibarrambla Square, where the valiant Gozul
the Moor formerly fought bulls, and the houses of
which, with their balconies and look-outs in joiner-
work, somewhat resemble chicken-coops. The fish-
market is in one corner of the square, the centre of
which is an open place surrounded with stone benches

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GRANADA

full of money-changers, vendors of alcarrazas (earthen
jars), watermelons, linen stuffs, ballads, knives, chap-
lets and other small wares. The Zacatin, which has
preserved its Moorish name, connects Bibarrambla
Square with the New Square. In this street, parallel
to which run lateral lanes and which is covered with
sail-cloth awnings, the whole business of Granada is
carried on with much animation and noise. Hatters,
tailors, shoemakers, bakers, and cloth-dealers occupy
shops which are as yet unacquainted with the refine-
ments of modern luxury and recall the old shops of the
Market Place in Paris. At -all hours of the day there is
a crowd in the Zacatin ; now a group of Salamanca
students on a journey, playing on the guitar, the tam-
bourine, or castanets and triangles, as they sing songs
full of fun and spirit ; now a horde of gipsies with
their blue dresses with large patterns spangled with
stars, their long yellow shawls, their uncombed hair,
great amber or coral necklaces around their necks ; or
else a long line of asses, laden with huge jars and
driven by a Vega peasant as tanned as an African.

The Zacatin opens into the Plaza Nueva, one side
of which is occupied by the splendid palace of the
Chancery, noticeable for its columns, of the Rustic

i6 241

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

order, and the severe beauty of its arcades. Having
crossed the square, you ascend the Calle de Gomeres,
at the end of which you enter within the jurisdiction
of the Alhambra, opposite the Granada Gate, called
Bib Alanjar by the Moors, with, on the right, the
Vermilion Towers, built, say the learned, on Phoenician
sab-structures, and to-day inhabited by basket-makers
and potters.

Before going farther we ought to warn our readers
— who may think that our description, though scrupu-
lously accurate, falls short of their ideas — that the
Alhambra, the fortress-palace of the former Moorish
kings, is not in the least like what one imagines.
You expect to see terraces rising one above another,
minarets with delicate tracery, and perspectives of
innumerable pillars. There is nothing of all that in
reality. From the outside all you see are great, mas-
sive towers the colour of brick or dust, built at various
times by Arab princes; inside a succession of halls
and galleries decorated with extreme delicacy, but
lacking grandeur. Having made this reservation, we
shall go on our way.

Having passed through the Granada Gate, you enter
the precincts of the fortress and the jurisdiction of a

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GRANADA

separate governor. Two roads are cut through a high
wood ; let us take the left-hand one which leads by
the Charles V fountain. It is the steeper, but the
shorter and more picturesque. Brooks flow swiftly
down pebbly beds and water the trees, which are
almost all Northern, and the green foliage of which is
most delightful to behold so close to Africa. The
murmur of running water mingles with the sharp
singing of hundreds of thousands of crickets, whose
voice is never silent and which forcibly recalls you, in
spite of the coolness of the place, to thoughts of the
South and its torrid heat. Water bubbles up every-
where, under the trunks of the trees, through the
courses of the old walls. The hotter it is, the more
abundant are the springs, for they are fed by the
mountain snows. The mingling of water, snow, and
heat makes the Granada climate unparalleled in the
world. It is a true terrestrial paradise, and without
being a Moor, it may be said of us, when we are sunk
in deep melancholy, what the Arab proverb says, " He
is thinking of Granada."

At the top of the road, which keeps on ascending,
you come to the great monumental fountain which
forms a buttress and which is dedicated to the memorv

243

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

of Charles V, with no end of mottoes, arms, figures of
Victory, imperial eagles, and medallions, in the rich and
dull German-Roman taste. Two scutcheons bearing
the arms of the house of Mondejar tell that Don Luis
de Mendoza, Marquis of Mondejar, built this monu-
ment in honour of the red-bearded Caesar, The
fountain, which is of solid masonry, upholds the slope
of the stair which leads to the Gate of Judgment by
which the Alhambra proper is entered.

The Gate of Judgment was built by King Yusuf
Abul Hagiag about the year 1348. Its name comes
from the custom of the Moslems to administer justice
at the gate of their palace, a most majestic fashion
which did not allow any one to enter the inner courts ;
for Royer-Collard's maxim, " Private life should be
walled in," was invented centuries ago in the East,
the land of the sun, whence all wisdom springs.

The Moorish king's structure might more properly
be called a door than a gate, for in reality it is a huge,
square door, fairly high, pierced by a great, horse-shoe
arch, which acquires a somewhat repelling and cabal-
istic look from the hieroglyphics of the key and the
hand carved on two separate stones. The key is a
venerated symbol among the Arabs on account of

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GRANADA

a verse of the Koran beginning with these words, " He
has opened," and it has a number of hieratical mean-
ings. The hand is intended to ward off the evil eye,
like the little coral hands which are worn in Naples in
the shape of a charm or a breastpin to protect one
against the same danger. There was an old saying
that Granada would never be taken until the hand
seized the key. To the shame of the prophet be it
spoken, the two symbols are still in the same place,
and Boabdil el Chico (as he was called on account of
his small stature) uttered, outside the walls of con-
quered Granada that historic sigh, suspiro del Moro^
which gave its name to one of the cliffs of the Sierra
Elvira.

This crenellated, massive tower, glazed with orange
and red, against a background of crude sky, with an
abyss of vegetation behind it, the city on a precipice,
and in the distance long mountain-chains veined with
a thousand tints like African porphyry, forms a splendid
and majestic entrance to the Arab palace.

Under the gate is installed a guard-room, and poor,
ragged soldiers sleep at the same place where the
Caliphs, seated on gold-brocaded divans, their black
eyes motionless in their marble faces, their fingers lost

245

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

in the flow of their silky beards, listened with dreamy
and solemn looks to the complaints of the believers.
An altar surmounted by an image of the Virgin is
placed against the wall as if to sanctify at the very
outset this former throne of the worshippers of Ma-
homet. Having traversed the gate, you enter a vast
square called las Aljibes, in the centre of which is a
cistern enclosed within a sort of wooden shed cov-
ered with esparto, under which you drink for a
cuarto huge glasses of water as clear as a diamond,
as cold as ice, and of most exquisite taste. The
Quebrada, Homenaje, Armeria, and Vela Towers,
— the bell in the Vela Tower announces the hour
of the distribution of water, — on the stone parapets
of which you can lean and admire the marvellous pros-
pect which is unrolled before you, surround the square
on three sides ; the other is filled up by the palace of
Charles V, a vast monument of the time of the Ren-
aissance, which would be admired anywhere else, but
which one curses here, for one remembers that it cov-
ers an equal extent of the Alhambra, torn down pur-
posely to make room for this huge pile. Yet the
Alcala was designed by Alonzo Berruguete, and the
trophies, the bassi-relievl^ and the medallions of the

246

GRANADA

facade have been carved by a skilful, bold, patient
sculptor. The circular court with its marble columns,
in which were to take place bull-fights, Is unquestion-
ably a magnificent piece of architecture, but it is out
of place here.

The Alhambra is entered through a corridor in a
corner of the palace of Charles V, and after a few
turns, one reaches a great court called the Court of
Myrtles (Patio de los Arrayanei)^ or the Court of the
Reservoir (Albercd). On emerging from the dark pas-
sage into this bright space filled with light, it seems
as if the wand of an enchanter has carried you into
the East some four or five centuries ago. Time,
which changes everything, has in no wise altered the
aspect of the place, and one would not be in the least
sui*prised did the Sultana Binder of Hearts and the
Moor Tafi in his white mantle suddenly appear.

In the centre of the court has been dug a vast reser-
voir three or four feet deep, in the shape of a par-
allelogiam bordered by hedges of myrtle and shrubs,
terminating at each end in a sort of gallery with very
slender columns which support Moorish arches of
great lightness. Basins with jets of water which over-
flow into the reservoir by marble gutters, are placed

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

under each gallery and make the decoration symmet-
rical. On the left are the archives and the room
where, amid debris of all kinds, is relegated — to the
shame of the people of Granada be it said — the
magnificent Alhambra Vase, nearly four feet high,
covered with ornaments and inscriptions, a monument
of priceless value v/hich would alone be the gem of
a museum, and which Spanish carelessness allows to
go to ruin in a vile corner. One of the wings which
formed the handles was broken recently.

Passages leading to the old mosque, made into
a church at the time of the Conquest under the invo-
cation of Saint Mary of the Alhambra, are also on
this side. On the right are the dwellings of the
keepers, where the heads of some brown Andalusian
servants, framed within a narrow Moorish window,
produce a ver}' satisfactory effect. At the back, above
the ugly roof of round tiles which replaced the cedar
beams and gilded tiles of the Arab roof, rises majesti-
cally the Comares Tower, the battlements of which
stand out golden against the wondrously clear sky.
This tower contains the Hall of the Ambassadors,
and communicates with the Patio de los Arravanes
by an atrium called Sa/a de la Barca on account of the

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GRANADA

a boat. This antechamber to the Hall of Ambassadors
is worthy of its purpose. The bold arcades, the
variety and interlacing of the arabesques, the inscrip-
tions on the walls, the marvellous work of the stucco
vaulting, which is as ornamented as the ceiling of
a stalactite grotto, painted in blue, green, and red, of
which the traces are still visible, form an ensemble
delightfullv quaint and tia'ive.

On either side of the door which leads to the Hall
of Ambassadors, in the verv jambs of the arcade itself,
above the revetment of enamelled tiles — the brilliant
coloured triangles of which adorn the lower portion
of the walls — are hollowed out, in the shape of small
chapels, two niches of white marble carved with
wondrous delicacy. The Hall of the Ambassadors,
one of the largest in the Alhambra, takes up the whole
of the Comares Tower. The larch-wood roof pre-
sents the geometric combinations of which Arab archi-
tects were so fond. All the pieces are so arranged
that the outer and the inner angles form an infinite
variety of designs ; the walls disappear under a net-
work of ornament so close, so inextricably interlaced
that it may best be compared to numerous pieces of

249

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

lace placed one on top of another. Gothic architec-
ture, with its lace-work of stone and its rose-window
tracery, pales by the side of this. One of the char-
acteristics of the Moorish style is that it has very few
salient points and very few profiles. All this orna-
ment extends over flat surfaces and has not much
more than four or five inches relief. It is a sort of
tapestry worked out on the wall itself, A peculiar
characteristic marks it, — the use of writing as a dec-
orative motive. It is true that Arabic writing, with its
curves and mystic forms, lends itself admirably to such
use. The inscriptions, which are almost always suras
from the Koran or praises of the different princes
who built and decorated the halls, run along the
frieze, the lintels of the doors, and round the arches
of the windows, mingling with flowers, scrolls, and
all the wealth of Arab caligraphy. The inscriptions in
the Hall of Ambassadors mean " Glory to God, power
and riches to the believers," or sing the praises of
Abu Nazar, who, " had he been transported alive into
heaven, would have caused the stars and the planets
to pale," a hvperbolical statement which seems to us
rather too Eastern. Other inscriptions praise Abu
Abd' Allah, another sultan who built this part of the

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GRANADA

palace. The windows are covered with verses in
honour of the clearness of the waters of the reservoir,
the coolness of the shade of the shrubs, and the per-
fume of the flowers which adorn the Mexuar Court,
which, as a matter of fact, you catch a glimpse of
from the Hall of the Ambassadors through the doors
and the columns of the gallery.

The loop-holes, with internal balconies, pierced at
a great height from the ground, the timber roof with-
out other decoration than zigzags and interlacings
formed by the adjustment of the timbers, impart to
the Hall of Ambassadors a more severe aspect than
that of the other halls of the palace, and more in
harmony with its purpose. From the end window
there is a superb view over the Darro ravine.

Having completed this description, we have to
destroy another illusion : all this magnificence is
neither marble, alabaster, nor stone, but simply plaster.
This greatly upsets the idea of fairy luxury which the
mere name of the Alhambra awakens in the most
commonplace imagination ; and yet it is absolutely
true. With the exception of the columns, usually cut
out of one block and the height of which is scarce
more than six or eight feet, and of a few blocks in

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the paving of the basins of the fountains and the small
niches, there is not a single piece of marble used in
the interior of the Alhambra. It is the same with the
Generalife. No nation has carried farther than the
Arabs the art of moulding, hardening, and carving
plaster, which acquired in their hands the hardness
of stucco without its unpleasant gloss. Most of these
ornaments, therefore, are made in moulds and re-
peated without much expenditure of labour every
time that symmetry calls for it. Nothing could be
easier, therefore, than to reproduce accurately a hall
in the Alhambra ; all that would be necessary would
be to take casts of all the motives of ornamentation.
Two arcades in the Tribunal Hall that had fallen
in were replaced by Granada workmen in a way that
leaves absolutely nothing to be desired. If we were
a millionaire, one of our fancies would be to have
a dupHcate of the Court of Lions erected in one of
our parks.

From the Hall of Ambassadors is reached, through
a comparatively modern passageway, the Tocador, or
Queen's dressing-room (Peinador). This is a small
building, situated on the top of a tower, from which
one enjoys a marvellous panorama. At the entrance

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GRANADA

is noticed a slab of white marble pierced with small
holes through which rose the smoke of perfumes
burned below the floor. On the walls are still to
be seen the fantastic frescoes, the work of Bartolomc
de Ragis, Alonzo Perez, and Juan de la f'ucntc.
Along the frieze, amid groups of Cupids, are inter-
laced the monograms of Isabella and Philip V. It
is difficult to imagine anything more dainty and
delightful than this small room with its Moorish
columns, its semicircular arches poised above an abyss
of azure at the foot of which show the roofs of
Granada, while the breeze -wafts to it the perfumes
of the Generalife, which is like a huge clump of rose-
laurel bloom on the brow of the near hill, and the
plaintive cry of the peacocks which wander about
the dismantled walls. No description, no painting
can approach the brilliancy, the luminosity, the vigour
of the tones ; the most ordinary tints acquire a rich-
ness equal to that of precious stones, and in the scale
of colours every thing is of the same value. Towards
the close of day, when the sun is low, marvellous
effects occur. The mountains sparkle like vast heaps
of rubies, topazes, and carbuncles ; the spaces between
are filled with a golden dust, and if, as often occurs

253

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

in summer, the peasants are burning straw in the
plain, the wisps of smoke which slowly rise heaven-
ward are coloured by the rays of the setting sun with
exquisite tints. I am surprised that Spanish painters
should have as a general rule painted such dark
pictures and have almost exclusively imitated Cara-
vaggio and other sombre masters. The paintings of
Decamps and Marilhat, which represent only Asiatic
and African scenes, give a far more accurate idea
of Spain than all the costly paintings brought back
from the Peninsula.

We shall traverse without a stop the Lindaraja
Garden, which now is nothing but waste ground
strewn with debris, bristling with brambles; and we
shall enter for a moment the Sultana's baths which
are covered with mosaic patterns, formed of varnished
earthen tiles embroidered with a filigree in plaster
which would put to shame the most complicated
madrepore. A fountain stands in the centre, two
alcoves are cut in the wall. Here it was that the
Binder of Hearts and Zobeide used to recline on gold-
cloth carpets after having enjoyed the luxurious delight
of an oriental bath. Some fifteen feet above the
ground are still seen the tribunes or balconies where

254

GRANADA

stood the players and singers. The baths themselves
are great white-marble basins cut out of a single
block, placed in small vaulted cabinets lighted by
round or star-shaped traceried windows.

The English engravings and the numerous drawings
of the Court of the Lions give a very incomplete and
erroneous idea of it ; they are almost all lacking in
proportion, and on account of the minuteness rendered
necessary bv the infinite detail of Arab architecture,
they make the monument appear much more im-
portant than it really is. The Court of the Lions
is ninety-two feet long by fifty-two feet wide, and the
galleries which surround it are not more than twenty-
two feet high. They are formed of one hundred and
twenty-four columns of white marble ranged in sym-
metrical disorder in groups of four and of three
alternately. From these pillars, the highly ornamented
capitals of which still bear traces of gilding and colours,
spring stilted arches of extreme elegance and peculiar
workmanship.

On entering, at the end of the parallelogram stands
the Hall of the Tribunal, the vaulting of which con-
tains an artistic work of great rarity and inestimable
value in the shape of Arab paintings, the only ones,

255

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

perhaps, which have come down to us. One of them
represents the Court of the Lions itself, with, the
fountain easily recognisable, but gilded ; some figures,
which the state of decay of the painting does not allow
one to make out distinctly, seem to be engaged in a
joust or an assault at arms. The subject of the other
is a sort of divan, at which are assembled the Moorish
kings of Granada. Their white burnouses, their olive-
coloured faces, their red lips and mysterious black eyes
are still easily seen. These paintings, it is claimed,
are on prepared leather pasted on cedar panels, and
prove that the precept of the Koran which forbids the
representation of living beings was not always scrupu-
lously observed by the Moors, even did not the twelve
lions of the fountain confirm this statement.

To the left, in the centre of the longer portion of
the gallery, stands the Hall of the Two Sisters, which
is the companion of the Hall of the Abencerrages.
Its name comes from the two huge slabs of white
Machael marble, of equal size and exactly alike, which
are inserted in the pavement. The vaulting or cupola,
which the Spaniards so appropriately term " half
orange," is a wonder of work and patience ; it is
something like the combs of a beehive or the stalactites

256

GRANADA

of a grotto, or a, cluster of soap-bubbles which children
blow with a straw. These myriads of diminutive
vaults or domelets, three or four feet across, which
spring one from another, crossing and breaking their
edges, seem rather the product of a fortuitous crys-
tallisation than the work of a human hand. Blue,
red, and green still shine in the hollows of the mould-
ings almost as brilliantly as if they had just been laid
on. The walls, like those in the Hall of the Ambas-
sadors, are covered from the dado down with plaster
embroidery of incredible delicacy and complexity ; the
lower portion is covered with glazed tiles, the black,
green, and yellow corners of which form a mosaic
pattern upon the white background. The centre of
the hall, in accordance with the unchanging custom
of the Arabs, whose dwellings seem to be nothing but
great basins enriched, is occupied by a basin and a jet
of water. There are four of these under the portico
of the Tribune, an equal number under the entrance
portico, another in the hall of the Abencerrages, with-
out counting the Lion Fountain, which, not satisfied
with pouring water out of the mouths of its twelve
monsters, hurls towards heaven a torrent through the
bulb which surmounts it.

17 257

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

The water from all these different fountains is led
by gutters hollowed out in the pavement of the halls
and the court to the foot of the Lion Fountain,
where it empties into a subterranean vent. This is
assuredly a dwelling where dust will not trouble one,
and the wonder is how such rooms could be inhabited
in winter. No doubt the great cedar gates were then
closed, the marble pavement covered with thick rugs,
and fires of fruit-pippins and scented wood lighted in
the braseros ; and thus the inhabitants awaited the
return of the warm season, which is never long
delayed in Granada.

We shall not describe the Hall of the Abencerrages,
which is very similar to that of the Two Sisters and
has nothing remarkable save its old lozenged wooden
gate, which goes back to the time of the Moors. In
the Alcazar at Seville there is another in exactly the
same style.

The Lion Fountain enjoys, in Arab poetry, a mar-
vellous reputation ; there is no praise too great for
these superb animals. For my part, I am bound to
confess that it would be difficult to find anything less
like lions than these works of African fancy. The

paws are more like those rough pieces of wood that
--

GRANADA

are put into the stomachs of cardboard dogs to pre-
serve their equilibrium ; the faces, rayed with cross-
bars, no doubt intended to figure the moustaches, are
exactly like the mouths of hippopotami ; the eyes are
of such primitive drawing that they recall the shape-
less attempts of children : and yet these twelve mon-
sters, if considered not as lions but as chimeras, as
caprices of ornamentation, produce, with the basin
which they upbear, a picturesque and elegant effect
which enables one to understand their reputation and
the praise contained in the Arabic inscription, in
twenty-four lines of twenty-two syllables, engraved
upon the sides of the basin into which falls the water
from the upper basin. It was into this fountain that
fell the heads of the thirty-six Abencerrages drawn
into the trap by the Zegris. The other Abencerrages
would all have suffered the same fate but for the devo-
tion of a little page, who hastened, at the risk of his
own life, to warn the survivors and prevent their
entering the fatal court. At the bottom of the basin
are pointed out great red stains, an indelible accusation
left by the victims against their cruel executioners.
Unfortunately, learned men pretend that the Abencer-
rages and the Zegris never existed. On this point I

259

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

trust wholly to the ballads, the popular traditions, and
the novels of Chateaubriand, and I am firmly con-
vinced that the red stains are due to blood, and not to
rust.

The Generalife is situated a short distance from the
Alhambra upon a hump of the same mountain. It is
reached by a sort of hollow road which crosses the los
Molinos ravine, bordered with fig trees with enormous
shining leaves, green oaks, pistachios, laurels, and rock
roses, all growing with incredible richness. The
ground on which you walk consists of yellow sand
permeated with water and extraordinarily fertile.
Nothing is more delightful than this road, which
seems to be cut through an American virgin forest, so
full of flowers and varied is it, so heavy is the perfume
of the aromatic plants. Vines grow out of the cracks
of the broken-down walls and hang their fanciful
tendrils and their leaves, outlined like Arab orna-
ments, on every branch. The aloe opens out its fan
of azure blades, the orange tree twists its knotty
trunk and clings to the bricks of the escarpment.
Everything blooms and flowers in a thick disorder full
of delightful and unexpected happenings. A stray
branch of jessamine mingles its white stars with the

260

GRANADA

scarlet flowers of the pomegranate, and a cactus on
one side of the road is, in spite of its thorns, embraced
by a laurel on the other. Nature, left to herself,
seems to become coquettish, and to insist on showing
how far behind her is even the most exquisite and
consummate art.

It is a fifteen minutes walk to the Generalifc, which
is a sort of country house of the Alhambra. The
exterior, like that of all Eastern buildings, is exceed-
ingly plain : high, windowless walls, surmounted by a
terrace, with an arcaded gallery, and over all a small
modern look-out. Nothing is left of the Generalife
but arcades and great arabesque panels, unfortunately
overlaid with whitewash, which is renewed with
despairingly obstinate cleanliness. Little by little all
the delicate grace, the marvellous modelling of this
fairy architecture are vanishing, filling up and dis-
appearing. What is now but a faintly vermiculated
wall was formerly a piece of lace as delicate as the
sheets of ivory which the patient Chinese carve into
fans. The whitewasher's brush has destroyed more
masterpieces than the scythe of Time, if we may use
this mythological and worn-out comparison. In a
fairly well preserved hall are to be seen a series of

261

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

smoky portraits of the kings of Spain, which have
no merit other than that which archaeology bestows
upon them.

The real charms of the Generalife are its gardens
and its water-works. A marble-lined canal runs the
whole length of the enclosure, and its full, rapid
stream flows under a succession of arcades of foliage
formed by colossal clipped yews ; orange trees and
cypresses are planted on either bank. At the foot of
one of these cypresses, which is of monstrous size
and which goes back to the time of the Moors,
Boabdil's favourite, if the legend is to be believed,
proved many a time that bolts and bars are but slight
guarantees of the virtue of sultanas. What is quite
certain is that the yew tree is very large and very old.

The perspective is closed by a galleried portico with
jets of water and marble columns like the Patio de los
Arrayanes at the Alhambra. The canal turns, forms
a loop, and you enter other enclosures adorned with
ponds, on the walls of which are the remains of
frescoes of the sixteenth centur)' representing rustic
buildings and landscapes. In the centre of one pf these
ponds blooms, like a vast bouquet, a gigantic rose-laurel
of incomparable beauty and brilliancy. When I saw
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GRANADA

it, it looked like an explosion of flowers, like a bouquet
of vegetable fireworks, a splendid and vigorous mass
of noisy freshness, if such a word may be applied to
colours which would cause the most brilliant rose to
pale. Its lovely flowers bloomed out with all the
ardour of desire towards the pure light of heaven ; its
noble leaves, designed expressly by nature as a crown
for gladiators, were laved by the spray of the jets of
water and sparkled like emeralds in the sunshine.
Nothing has ever given me such a deep sensation
of beauty as that rose laurel in the Generalife.

The water is brought to the gardens by a sort of
very steep slope with side walls that serve as weirs.
Upon it are laid runlets formed of great hollow tiles,
down which the brooks rush with the brightest and
most lifelike ripple. On every terrace numerous jets
spring from the centre of small basins and throw their
crystal aigrettes up into the thick foliage of the laurel
wood, the branches of which are entwined above them.
The mountain streams with water on every hand, a
spring wells up at every step, and you constantly
hear the near murmur of some brooklet turned from
its course to feed a fountain or to bear refresh-
ments to a tree. The Arabs carried the art of

263

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

irrigation to a very high degree ; their hydraulic works
testify to a most advanced stage of civilisation, and it is
to these works that Granada owes its position as the
paradise of Spain and that it enjoys eternal spring in an
African temperature. A branch of the Darro was de-
flected by the Arabs and brought more than six miles
to the hill of the Alhambra,

From the look-out on the Generalife the plan of the
Alhambra, with its bold, reddish, half-ruined towers
and its walls which ascend and descend, following
the outlines of the hill, can be plainly perceived.
The palace of Charles V, which is not visible from
the city, stands out, a square and robust mass gilded
by the sun, against the damask sides of the Sierra
Nevada, the white crests of which show in startling
outline against the sky. The spire of Santa Maria
projects its Christian lines above the Moorish crenella-
tions. A few cypresses grow in the crevices of
the walls, their dark foliage confronting one in the
midst of all that light and azure like a sad thought
in a joyous play. The slopes of the hill towards the
Darro and the ravine of los Molinos disappear in
an ocean of verdure. It is one of the loveliest
prospects that can be imagined. On the other side,

264

GRANADA

by way of contrast to this fresh beauty, rises a
bare, burnt, tawny mountain, spotted with ochre and
sienna tones, which is called the Silla del Moro, from
the remains of buildings upon its summit. Thence it
was that King Boabdil watched the Arab cavaliers tilt
in the Vega with the Christian knights. The remem-
brance of the Moors is still living in Granada. One
would think that it was only yesterday that they
quitted the city, and if one may judge by what they
left behind, it is a great pity that they did so. What
southern Spain needs is African, and not European
civilisation, for the latter is not in harmony with
the heat of the climate and the passions which it
inspires.

Monte Sagrado, which contains the miraculously
discovered crypts, is not very interesting. It is a
convent with a commonplace church, under which
the crypts are dug ; nor do the crypts make any
strong impression. They consist of small, narrow
passages seven or eight feet in height. Within niches
made for the purpose are placed altars adorned with
more devotion than taste. In these niches, behind
gratings, are placed the reliquaries and the bones of
the holy personages. I looked for a subterranean,

265

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

obscure, mysterious, almost terrifying church, with
squat pillars and low vaulting, lighted by a dim, dis-
tant lamp, — something resembling the ancient cata-
combs; and I was greatly surprised at the clean,
coquettish aspect of this whitewashed crypt lighted by
air holes like a cellar ; for we rather superficial Catho-
lics need the picturesque to attain to religious feeling.
The devotee does not think much of the play of light
and shade, the more or less correct proportions of the
architecture ; he knows that under that somewhat
shapeless altar are concealed the bones of a saint
who died for the faith he professes: that is enough for
him.

The Carthusian convent, emptied of its monks as all
Spanish convents now are, is a superb building, and its
withdrawal from its original purpose is most regret-
table. We have never quite understood what harm
could be done by cenobites, cloistered in a voluntary
prison and living an austere, prayerful life, especially in
a country like Spain, where certainly there is no lack
of ground.

The portal of the church is reached by a double
staircase. It is ornamented by a statue of Saint Bruno
in white marble, which is rather fine. The decoration

266

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of the church is curious. It consists of stucco ara-
besques absolutely marvellous for the variety and the
invention of the motives. It seems as though the
architect had intended to repeat in a different style
the lightness and complexity of the lace-work in the
Alhambra. There is not a place the size of the hand
in that vast nave which is not flowered, damascened,
foliaged, lined, and enriched. It is enough to drive
mad any one who should attempt to make an accurate
drawing of it. The choir is covered with precious
porphyry and marbles. A few indifferent paintings
are hung here and there along the walls, and make you
regret the portions they conceal.

The graveyard is near the church. In accordance
with Carthusian use, no tomb or cross marks the place
where sleep the dead. The cells are ranged around the
cemetery, and each has a little garden. In a plot of
ground planted with trees, which no doubt served as a
walk for the monks, I was shown a sort of a fish-
pond with sloping stone margins, on which some
dozens of turtles were awkwardly dragging themselves,
drinking in the sunshine and quite happy at being
henceforth safe from the stewpan. The Carthusian
rule forbids the eating of meat, and the turtle is con-
267

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

sidered a fish by casuists. These were used to feed
the monks; the Revolution saved them.

Since we are busy visiting convents, let us, if you
please, enter the monastery of Saint John the Divine.
The cloister is most peculiar, and in the very worst of
bad taste. The walls, painted in fresco, represent
different fine actions in the life of Saint John the
Divine, framed in grotesque and fantastic ornaments
which surpass the most extravagant and curious de-
formities of Japanese monsters and Chinese grotesque
figures. There are sirens playing on viols, female
apes at their toilet, miraculous fishes in impossible
waves ; flowers that look like birds, and birds that
look like flowers ; mirrors in the shape of lozenges,
china plaques, love-nets, — in a word, an indescribable
labyrinth.

The church, which happily belongs to another age,
is gilded almost all over. The reredos, supported by
columns of the Salomonic order, has a rich and majes-
tic effect.

I saw in this church a striking spectacle, — an old
woman crawling on her knees from the gate to the
altar. Her arms were stiffly extended like the arms of
a cross, her head thrown back, her eyes turned up so

^68

GRANADA

much that only the whites of them were visible, her
lips drawn over her teeth, her face of a shining lead-
colour ; she was in a state of ecstasy carried to the
point of catalepsy. Never did Zurbaran paint any-
thing more ascetic and fuller of feverish devotion. She
was fulfilling a penance imposed upon her by her
confessor, and had eight more days of it.

The convent of San Jeronimo, now transformed
into a barracks, contains a Gothic cloister with two
stories of arcades of remarkable character and beauty.
The capitals of the pillars are ornamented with fan-
tastic foliage and animals of charming invention and
exquisite workmanship. The profaned and deserted
church has the peculiarity that the architectural orna-
ments and reliefs are painted in grisaille instead of
being real. Gonsalvo de Cordova, called the Great
Captain is buried here. His sword was formerly pre-
served in this place, but recently it was stolen and sold
for two or three douros^ — about the worth of the
silver ornaments of the hilt. It is in this way that
many things precious and valuable as souvenirs or as
works of art have disappeared without greater profit to
the thieves than the pleasure of v/rong-doing. It seems
to me that our revolution might surely have been imi-

269

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

tatcd in something else than its stupid vandalism. This
was impressed on me as I visited the former convent
of Saint Dominic in Antequeruela. The chapel is
decorated with an incredible excess of gewgaws and
gilding. Everywhere are twisted pillars, volutes, acan-
thus leaves, veneering of coloured breccia, glass mosaic,
parquetry of mother-of-pearl, crystals, bevelled mirrors,
radiant suns, transparencies, — in a word, all that the
unsettled taste of the eighteenth century and the dis-
like of the straight line can inspire in the way of disor-
derly, deformed, eccentric, and misshapen.

The library, which has been preserved, contains
almost exclusively foho and quarto volumes bound in
white vellum, the title written in black or red ink.
Most of the books are treatises on theology, disserta-
tions on casuistry, and other scholastic works not very
interesting to mere men of letters. In the convent
has also been brought together a collection of paintings
drawn from monasteries closed or destroyed, in which,
save for some fine ascetic heads and a few martyrdoms
that seem to have been painted by executioners, so
remarkable is the knowledge of tortures which they
display, there is nothing particularly worthy of note ;
but it proves that the devastators were experts in paint-

270

GRANADA

ing, for they knew very well how to keep for them-
selves whatever was good. The courts and cloisters
are admirably cool, and adorned with orange trees and
flowers. How wonderfully everything in them conduces
to reverie, meditation, and study, and what a pity that
the convents were ever inhabited by monks instead of
poets ! The gardens, left to themselves, have assumed
a wild and picturesque aspect, a luxuriant vegetation
invades the walks, nature everywhere resumes posses-
sion of its rights. It replaces every stone that falls
by a clump of grass or a tuft of flowers. The most
noticeable thing in the gardens is a walk of huge
laurels, which form an arbour, paved with white marble
slabs and provided on either side with a long marble
bench with inclined back. Jets of water, placed at
intervals, maintain coolness under this thick, green
vault, from the end of which one has a magnificent
prospect in the direction of the Sierra Nevada through
a charming Moorish look-out which forms part of the
remains of an old Arab palace enclosed within the con-
vent. This look-out communicates, it is said, with the
Alhambra, from which it is rather distant, by a long
subterranean passage. The belief in such passages is
deeply rooted in Granada, where the most insignificant

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Moorish ruin is always believed to possess fifteen or
eighteen miles of underground passages, and a hidden
treasure which is defended by a spell.

We often repaired to Santo Domingo to sit down in
the shade of the laurels and bathe in the piscina.

This is about all that is worth seeing during a stay
of a ^tw weeks in Granada. Museums are few ; the
theatre is closed during the summer; the bull-fight
arena is not regularly used ; there are no casinos,
no public establishments ; French and foreign papers
are to be found only at the Lyceum, the members of
which have meetings at stated times, when speeches
are made, verse is recited or sung, or comedies, com-
posed usually by some young poet belonging to the
society, are performed.

Every one is conscientiously occupied in doing
nothing ; love-making, the smoking of cigarettes, the
composing of quadrilles and stanzas, and especially
card-playing suffice to fill life pleasantly, and there is
no sign of that furious hurry, of the need of moving,
of bustling around, which possesses the people of the
North. The Spaniards strike me as being very philo-
sophical ; they attach but slight importance to material
things, and comfort is a matter of profound indifference

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to them. The innumerable factitious needs which
Northern civilisation has given birth to appear to them
puerile and troublesome. Of course, not having to
contend with a climate, they do not envy the comforts
of the English home. What do they care whether
the windows are tight, when they would willingly open
them and create a draught if they could only get hold
of it ? Favoured by a lovely climate, they have
reduced living to its simplest expression ; their sobri-
ety and moderation give them great liberty, — they
have time to live, and we can scarcely say as much.
The Spaniards do not understand why one should
work first in order to rest afterwards ; they prefer to
do the opposite thing, and it does appear to me the
wiser course. A workman who has earned a few
reales throws his handsome embroidered jacket over
his shoulder, takes his guitar and goes to dance or
flirt with the majos of his acquaintance until he has
not a penny left ; then he goes back to work. An
Andalusian can live luxuriously upon three or four
pence a day. With that he can have very white
bread, a huge slice of watermelon, and a small glass of
anisette; his lodging costs him nothing but the trouble
of stretching his cloak on the ground under some

«£* «l« «4> •4* *£« ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ tl^^tlrtl?^^*^*^*^*^*^ *i*«f**l*
TRAVELS IN SPAIN

portico or the arch of a bridge. Generally Spaniards
look upon work as humiliating and unworthy of a
free man, a very natural and very reasonable idea in
my opinion, since God, when He sought to punish
man for his disobedience, found no greater penalty
than to compel him to earn his bread by the sweat of
his brow. Pleasures won, as ours, by dint of labour,
fatigue, tension of mind and assiduity seem to them
far too costly. Like all primitive people close to a
state of nature, they have a clearness of judgment
which makes them despise conventional enjoyments.
To men who have just come from Paris or London,
those two whirlpools of devouring activity and fever-
ish, over-excited life, existence at Granada is a strange
spectacle : it is all leisure, filled with conversation,
walking, music, dancing. The happy calm of the
faces, the tranquil dignity of the appearance is sur-
prising ; no one has the busy look which passers-by
wear on the streets of Paris -, every one goes gently
along, choosing the shady side, stopping to chat with
his friends, and in no hurry to reach his destination.
The certainty that they can make no money destroys
all ambition. No career is open to young men. The
most adventurous go to Manila or Havana or enter

274

GRANADA

the army, but thanks to the wretched condition of
the finances, they remain sometimes for many a year
without getting any pay. Convinced of the useless-
ness of effort, they do not attempt impossible fortunes
and spend their time in a delightful idleness which the
beauty of the country and the warmth of the climate
greatly favour.

I have not had much experience of Spanish pride.
There is nothing so deceitful as the reputation which
is given to individuals and nations. I found the Span-
iards, on the contrary, extremely simple and kindly.
Spain is the true country of equality, not in words, per-
haps, but in fact. The meanest beggar lights his
cigar from the cigar of the nobleman, who allows him
to do so without the least affectation of condescension ;
the marchioness smilingly steps over the bodies of the
rascals sleeping across her door, and when travelling
she does not object to drinking out of the same glass
as the mayoral, the zagal, and the escopetero who are
conducting her. Strangers find it very difficult to fall
in with these familiar ways, especially the English.
Servants are treated with a gentle familiarity far differ-
ent from our affected politeness, which seems to recall
at every word the inferiority of their position. Of

275

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

course these remarks, like rules, are subject to numer-
ous exceptions ; no doubt there are many active, hard-
working Spaniards who enjoy all the refinements of
life ; but the impression stated is the one which a trav-
eller receives after a stay of some time in the country,
— an impression which is often more correct than that
of a native observer, who is less sensitive to the novelty
of manners.

276

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

'k'k'k'k^^^'k'k^'k'k^^'k'k^'kis^^^'k'k

MALAGA

PIECE of news well calculated to excite a
whole Spanish city had suddenly spread through
Granada to the great delight of the dilettanti. The
new circus at Malaga was at last finished, after having
cost the contractor five million reales, and in order to
inaugurate it solemnly by fights worthy of the finest
period of the art, the great Montes of Chiclana had
been engaged with his quadrille, and was to perform on
three successive days, — Montes, the first swordsman
m Spain, the brilliant successor of Romero and Pepe
Illo. We had already been present at several bull-
fights, but we had not been fortunate enough to see
Montes, — his political opinions prevented his appear-
ing at Madrid, — and to leave Spain without having
seen Montes is just as inexcusably barbarous as to leave
Paris without having seen Rachel perform. Although
Cordova was next on our itinerary, we could not resist
the temptation to make a dash to Malaga, in spite of
the bad roads and the short time at our disposal.

277

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

There is no stage-coach plying between Granada
and Malaga ; the only transport consists of galleys
or mules. We chose the latter as being surer and
quicker, for we were to take to cross-roads at Alpu-
jarras in order to reach Malaga on the very morning
of the bull-fight.

Our Granada friends told us of a cosario or train-
driver called Lanza, a handsome fellow, a very honest
man, and most intimate with the bandits. In f" ranee
this would be a poor recommendation, but it is quite
otherwise beyond the Pyrenees. Muleteers and galley
drivers are acquainted with the brigands, strike bar-
gains with them, and in consideration of a tax of so
much per head on each traveller or so much for a
train, according to circumstances, they have a free
passage and are not stopped. These bargains are scru-
pulously kept by both sides. When the leader of the
band submits and is amnestied, or for any other reason
sells out to some one else the stock in trade and good-
will of his business, he takes care to officially introduce
to his successor the cosarios who are paying blackmail
to him, so that they may not be inadvertently troubled.
In this way travellers are assured of not being robbed,
and the bandits avoid the risk of an attack and a fight.

MALAGA

which is often dangerous. Everybody benefits by the
arrangement.

One night, between Alhama and Velez, our cosario
was dozing on the neck of his mule at the tail end of
his train, when suddenly shrill cries awakened him.
He saw trabucos gleaming by the roadside. There
could be no doubt about it, the convoy was attacked.
Greatly surprised, he sprang off his mule, threw up
with his hand the muzzles of the muskets, and spoke
his name. " Oh, forgive us, Senor Lanza," said the
brigands, very much ashamed ; " we did not recognise
you. We are worthy people and incapable of such
indelicacy. We have too much honour to take even a
single cigar from you."

If you do not happen to be travelling with a man
who is known on the road, you must have a numerous
escort armed to the teeth ; which is expensive and
much less safe, for generally the escopeteros are retired
brigands.

It is customary in Andalusia, when travelling on
horseback and going to a bull-fight, to wear the
national costume ; so our little caravan was quite pic-
turesque and looked uncommonly well as it left Gra-
nada. Joyfully seizing this opportunity of putting

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

on a fancy dress outside of Carnival time, and of aban-
doning for a season the French costume, I had donned
my majo dress, pointed hat, embroidered jacket, velvet
waistcoat with filigree buttons, red silk sash, knee-
breeches and gaiters showing the leg. My companion
wore his costume of green velvet and Cordova leather.
Others wore the montera, a black jacket, and black
breeches embroidered in silk of the same colour, with
yellow cravat and sash. Lanza was remarkable for
the splendour of his silver buttons, which were reale
pieces soldered to a hook, and for the flat silk braid of
his second jacket which he carried on his shoulder like
a hussar's dolman.

The mule which had been given to me was clipped
half-way down, which enabled me to study its anatomy
as conveniently as if it were skinned. The saddle
was composed of two striped blankets folded double
so as to diminish as much as possible the asperities
of the vertebrae and the slope of the backbone. On
either of its sides hung, by way of stirrups, a couple
of wooden troughs, looking very much like rat traps.
Its headgear was so laden with pompons, tufts, and
gewgaws that it was difficult to perceive through the

maze the harsh, discontented profile of the ill-tempered
-_

MALAGA

animal. It is when travelling that the Spaniards
assume their old characteristics and throw off all
imitation of foreign ways. The national character
reappears in its entirety in those trains which cross
the mountains and which cannot be very different
from the caravans that traverse the desert. The
roughness of the track, the wild grandeur of the land-
scape, the picturesque costumes of the arrieros, the
quaint harness of the mules, the horses, and the asses
walking in a long file, take you thousands of miles
away from civilisation. Then travelling becomes a
real thing, an action in which you have a part. In
a stage-coach you are not a man, you are merely
an inert object, and really there is not much differ-
ence between your trunk and yourself. You are
thrown from one side to the other, that is all; you
might just as well remain at home. The pleasure
of travelling lies in difficulty, fatigue, and danger
even. What pleasure can there be in an excursion
when you are always sure to reach the end, to find
horses ready, a soft bed, and all the comforts which
vou can enjoy at home ? One of the great draw-
backs of modern life is the lack of unexpectedness
and of adventures ; everything is so well regulated,

^8^

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

so well arranged, so well conducted that the element
of chance is eliminated. With another century of
improvement, every one of us will be able to see
from his birth everything that will happen to him
to the day of his death. The human will will be
entirely annihilated ; there will be no more crime,
no more virtue, no more individuality, no more origi-
nality. No one will be able to distinguish a Russian
from a Spaniard, an Englishman from a Chinaman,
a Frenchman from an American. People will not
even be able to recognise one another, for everybody
will look alike. Then an immense weariness will
fall upon the universe, and suicide will decimate the
population of the earth, for the chief motive of life,
curiosity, will have been extinguished. A journey in
Spain is still a perilous and romantic enterprise. You
must run risks, be brave, patient, and strong ; you
have to venture your life at every step ; the least
inconveniences are privations of all sorts, the lack
of things most indispensable to life ; the dangerous
roads, which are absolutely impracticable for any one
else but Andalusian muleteers ; the infernal heat ; a
sun which nearly burns up your brain ; and in addi-
tion you have to contend with a whole rascally race

282

MALAGA

of rebels, Tobbers, innkeepers, whose probity is gradu-
ated according to the number of rifles which you
have with you ; danger surrounds you, follows you,
precedes you. You hear whispered around you terri-
ble, mysterious stories. Yesterday the bandits supped
in that posada ; a caravan has been carried away into
the mountains by the brigands to be ransomed ;
Palillos is in ambush at such a place where you must
pass. No doubt there is much exaggeration, yet,
incredulous as one may be, you have to believe a
little when at every turn of the road you see wooden
crosses with inscriptions such as : " Jqui mataron a
un hombre." " Acqiii mur'io de manpairaday

We left Granada in the evening and we were to
travel all night. Soon the moon rose and its silvery
rays fell upon the slopes ; the shadows of the rocks
grew longer and fell in strange shapes upon the road
which we were following, producing singularly poetical
effects. We could hear the bells of the asses which
had started earlier with our luggage tinkling in the
distance, or the mo-zo de niulas singing a love song
in the prolonged notes which are always so poetical
at night in the mountains.

We soon passed Cacin, where we forded a pretty

^8^

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

torrent a few inches in depth, the clear waters of
which shimmered over the sand like the scales of
a fish, and rushed like an avalanche of silver spangles
down the steep mountain-slope.

Beyond Cacin the road became atrocious. Our
mules sank in the loose stones up to the girths, strik-
ing sparks every time they put down their feet. We
kept ascending and descending, following the edge
of precipices, winding along or taking short cuts, for
we were in the Alpujarres, inaccessible solitudes, steep,
dread mountains, whence the Moors, it is said, were
never completely expelled, and where, concealed from
all eyes, live to this day some thousands of their
descendants.

We were greatly startled at a turn in the road.
We saw in the bright moonlight seven tall fellows
draped in long mantles in the centre of the road.
Our long expected adventure had at last turned up
in the most romantic fashion. Unfortunately the
bandits saluted us very politely with a respectful
" God be with you." They were the very opposite
of robbers, being a detachment of constabular)'. Oh,
what a bitter deception it was for two enthusiastic
young travellers who would willingly have paid for

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an adventore at the cost of their higgage ! We were
to sleep in a small town called Alhama, perched like
an eyrie on the summit of a cliff. Most picturesque
are the sudden turns of the road leading to the Falcon's
eyrie, as it winds through the uneven ground. We
reached Alhama at about two o'clock in the morning,
thirsty, hungry, and tired out. Three or four jars
of water quenched our thirst, our hunger was ap-
peased by a tomato omelet which, considering it
was in Spain, did not contain too many feathers. A
pretty stony mattress, not unlike a bag of walnuts,
was stretched on the ground and undertook to rest us.
In two minutes I slept — and my companion care-
fully imitated me — the sleep said to be that of the
just. Day found us in the same attitude, as motion-
less as bars of lead.

The heat was frightful ; nevertheless, I bravely
threw my jacket on my shoulder and went for a turn
through the streets of Alhama. The sky was like
molten metal, the paving-stones shone as if they had
been waxed and polished, the whitewashed walls spar-
kled like mica. A pitiless, blinding light penetrated
everywhere. Shutters and doors cracked, the ground
was creviced, the vine branches were twisted like green

^8^

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

wood in a fire. In addition there was the reflection
from the neighbouring rocks, which like burning mir-
rors sent back the sunbeams more burning yet. To
complete my torture, I had on thin-soled shoes, through
which the pavement scorched the soles of my feet.
There was not a breath of air, not enough to move
a bit of down. Nothing gloomier, sadder, and wilder
can be imagined. As I wandered at haphazard
through the deserted streets, I saw chalky walls pierced
with few windows, closed with wooden shutters most
African in aspect. I reached the main square, which
is quaintly picturesque, without meeting, I will not say
a soul, but not even a body. It is spanned by the
stone arches of an aqueduct. A plateau cut out of
the summit of the mountain forms the face of it ; it
has no other pavement than the rock itself, which is
grooved to prevent slipping. The whole of one side
of the square is precipitous and looks down bottomless
abysses, where one catches a glimpse of groups of
trees and of mills driven by a torrent which looks like
soapsuds so fiercely does it froth.

The caravan started again along stretches of most
picturesque roads on which mules alone could possibly
make their way. I let the bridle lie upon my animal's

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neck, thinking it was more capable of taking care of
itself, and trusting entirely to it to get through difficult
places.

We were travelling through a regular Campo Santo.
The crosses in memory of murders became frightfully
frequent. In certain places we counted as many as
three or four within a hundred yards. It was no
longer a .road, it was a cemetery. It must be con-
fessed, however, that if we had in France the habit of
perpetuating the remembrance of violent deaths by
means of crosses, there are certain parts of Paris which
could rival the Velez- Malaga road. Several of these
sinister monuments bore dates already old ; all the
same they keep a traveller's imagination on tenter-
hooks and make him attentive to the slightest sound.
He remains constantly on the watch and is never
bored for a moment.

Having passed through the defiles, the crosses
became somewhat rarer. We now travelled through
a mountain landscape of grand, severe aspect; the
summits hidden in vast archipelagoes of vapour ;
the countn^ entirely deserted ; no human dwelling
save the reed hut of a brandy seller. The brandv
is colourless, and is drunk in long glasses filled

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

with water which it turns white, as eau de Cologne
might do.

The weather was heavy and stormy, and the heat
suffocating. A few drops — the only drops which
had fallen for four months from that implacable, lapis-
lazuli sky — spotted the thirsty ground and made it
look like a panther's skin. The rain could not make
up its mind to come down, and the sultry vault
resumed its changeless serenitv. The sky was so
constantly blue during my stay in Spain that I find in
my note book this remark, " I have seen a white
cloud " — as if it were something worthy of note.
We Northerners, whose mist-laden skies offer a con-
stant change of form and colour, where the wind
builds cloud-mountains, islands, and palaces, which it
incessantly destroys to rebuild them elsewhere, cannot
have any idea of the deep melancholv caused bv an
azure as uniform as eternity, which is ever spread over
one's head. In a small village that we traversed
everybodv was out of doors to enjoy the rain, as with
us people go in doors in order to keep out of it.

The night had come on without any twilight,
almost suddenly, as it does in hot countries, and we
could not be very far from Velez-Malaga, the place

288

MALAGA

where we were to sleep. The slopes of the mountains
became less steep and ended in small, pebbly plains
traversed by brooks fifteen or twenty yards wide and a
foot in depth, edged with giant reeds. Of a truth, the
place is wondrously lonely and well adapted for ambush.
It was eleven when we reached Velez-Malaga,
where every window shone brightly and which was
full of songs and the sound of guitars. Maidens
seated on balconies sang couplets which their betrothed
accompanied from below. With every stanza came
bursts of laughter, shouts, and endless applause. Other
groups were dancing the cachucha, the fandango, and
the jota at the corners of the streets. The guitars
buzzed low like bees, the castanets clattered and
clinked; all was joy and music. It would seem as
though pleasure were the only serious thing with
Spaniards ; they give themselves up to it with admi-
rable freedom, ease, and spirit. No nation seems less
unhappy, and a stranger really finds it difficult to
believe, when he is traversing the Peninsula, that great
political events are happening, and to imagine that it is
a country desolated and ravaged by ten years of civil
war. Our peasants are /ar from possessing the happy
carelessness, the jovial airs, and the elegant costumes of
19 289

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the Andalusian majos. They are greatly inferior in
education. Almost all Spanish peasants can read,
and know by heart poetry which they recite or sing
without changing the time; they are all thorough horse-
men and skilled in handling the knife and the rifle.
It is true that the wondrous fertility of the soil and the
perfection of the climate save them from that brutalis-
ing labour which in less favoured countries reduces man
to the condition of a beast of burden or of a machine,
and robs him of those gifts of God, strength and beauty.
It was with deep pleasure that I fastened my mule
to the wall of the posada. Our supper was most
simple. All the maids and all the boys of the inn had
gone to the dance, and we had to be satisfied with
a simple gaspacho. This deserves a special descrip-
tion. Water is poured into a soup tureen, a drop of
vinegar is added, with garlic, onions cut into four
pieces, slices of cucumber, a few bits of pimento,
a pinch of salt. Then slices of bread are allowed to
soak in this delectable mixture, which is served cold.
With us any decent dog would refuse to put his nose
to such a mess, yet it is a favourite dish with the An-
dalusians, and the prettiest vyomen do not hesitate to
swallow in the evening great platefuls of this infernal

290

MALAGA

soup. The^gaspacho is stated to be very refreshing,
— an opinion which seems to us somewhat bold ; but,
strange as it may seem the first time you taste it, you
end by getting used to it and even by liking it. By a
compensation of Providence we had, to wash down
this meagre repast, a great carafe full of excellent dry
Malaga wine, which we conscientiously drank to the
very last drop, and which restored our strength, ex-
hausted by nine hours' travelling over atrocious roads
and in a heat like that of a lime-kiln.

At three o'clock the mule train started again. The
sky was cloudy, and a hot mist concealed the hori-
zon. A damp air gave token of the nearness of the
sea, which soon showed against the sky like a cold
blue streak. A few flecks of foam showed here and
there, and the waves rolled on the fine sand in great,
regular curves. To our right rose high cliffs. Some-
times the rocks left us free passage, sometimes they
barred our path and we had to ride around them.
The straight line is not much employed on Spanish
roads ; obstacles would be so difficult to remove that it
is better to turn than to overcome them. The famous
saying, Ilnea recta brevissima^ would be wholly inaccu-
rate here.

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

As the sun rose it drove away the vapours as if they
were smoke. The heavens and the sea resumed their
rivalry in blue, in which it may be said that neither is
superior. The cliffs began to take on their burnished
gold, orange, amethyst, and smoky topaz tints ; the
sand turned to dust and the water shimmered under the
intense light. Far, far away, almost on the horizon,
five sail of fishing-boats fluttered in the wind like
doves' wings. Here and there showed upon the gen-
tler slopes little houses white as sugar, flat-roofed and
with a sort of peristyle formed by an arbour supported
at each end by a square pillar, and in the centre by a
massive Egyptian-looking pylon. The aguardiente
shops were becoming numerous ; still built of reeds,
but better-looking, with whitewashed counters on
which were daubed a few red streaks. The road,
now following a distinct line, was edged with a border
of cacti and aloes, broken here and there by the gar-
dens of houses, in front of which women were mend-
ing nets and playing with little naked children, who, as
they saw us pass by on our mules, shouted after us,
" To7-o ! toro ! " Our majo costumes caused us to be
mistaken for owners of ganaderias or for toreros of
Montes' quadrille.

292

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MALAGA

Chariots dragged by oxen and files of donkeys be-
came more and more numerous. The traffic which is
always met with in the neighbourhood of a great city
was already evident. From all sides came trains of
mules bearing spectators bound for the bull-fight.
Aficionados are, as regards their vehement enthusiasm,
as far above dilettanti as a bull-fight is above an oper-
atic performance. Nothing can stop them, neither
heat nor obstacles, nor the dangers of the trip. Pro-
vided they can get there and have a place near the
fence, so as to be able to strike with their hand the
quarters of the bull, they consider themselves repaid
for their fatigue. Where is the tragic or comic author
who can boast of proving such an attraction ?

Nothing more picturesque and strange than the
environs of Malaga can be imagined : they are almost
African. The dazzling whiteness of the houses, the
dark blue colour of the sea, the blinding intensity of
the light, all combine to produce the same illusion.
On either side of the road rise huge aloes, waving their
blade-like leaves, gigantic cacti with broad, verdigrised
palettes and misshapen trunks twisted hideously like
monstrous boas, like the backbone of a stranded cacha-
lot. Here and there the shaft of a palm springs up,

293

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

spreading its lovely crown of foliage by the side of a
European tree amazed at its neighbour and troubled
at seeing the mighty African vegetation growing at
its feet.

A slender white tower showed against the blue of
the sky. It was the Malaga lighthouse ; we had
reached our destination.

It was about eight o'clock in the morning, and th^
town was very busy : sailors coming and going, load-
ing and unloading ships anchored in the harbour, with
an animation rarely met with in a Spanish town ;
women, their heads and busts covered with great
scarlet shawls which admirably set off their Moorish
faces, were walking swiftly, dragging along a child
either naked or clothed merely in a shirt : the men,
draped in their cloaks, or their jackets over their
shoulders, hastened their steps, and every one was going
in the same direction, — that is, to the bull-fight.
What most struck me in this motley crowd was six
negro galley-slaves dragging a chariot. They were of
gigantic stature, with monstrous faces, so savage and
so little human, marked with such bestial ferocity, that
I was terrified at the sight of them as if I had met six
tigers. The sort of linen gown which they wore gave

294

MALAGA

them a still more diabolical and fantastic appearance.
I know not why they had been sent to the galleys, but
I should have sent them there for the mere crime of
having such faces.

We stopped at the Three Kings Parador, — a com-
paratively comfortable house, shaded by a beautiful
vine the leaves of which clustered on the iron-work of
the balcony, and provided with a great room in which
the hostess sat in state behind a counter laden with
china, quite as if it were a Paris cafe. A very pretty
maid, a delightful specimen of the beautiful women of
Malaga, who are famous throughout Spain, showed us
to our rooms, and caused us lively anxiety for a mo-
ment by telling us that every seat for the bull-fight
was sold, and that we should find it very difficult to
obtain any. Fortunately our cosario, Lanza, found
us a couple of reserved seats, — on the sunny side,
it is true, but we did not care for that. We had
long since sacrificed our complexion, and one more
layer of tan upon our brown and yellow faces would
matter little.

The fights were to go on for three successive days.
During our first breakfast a number of travelling
students came in. • There were four of them, and they

295

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

resembled more the models of Ribera and Murillo than
divinity students, — so ragged, unshod, and filthy were
they. They sang comic songs, accompanying them-
selves on the tambourine, the triangles, and the
castanets.

The bull-fight was appointed to begin at five o'clock,
but we were advised to go at about one, because the
passageways would soon be crowded and we should be
unable to reach our stalls, although these were reserved;
so we ate our lunch in haste and started for the Plaza
de Toros, preceded by our guide Antonio, a tall, thin
chap whose bright red sash, pulled exceedingly tight,
still further set off his extreme thinness, which he
comically attributed to disappointed love. The streets
were filled with a crowd that grew denser as we ap-
proached the circus. Aguadores, sellers of iced cebada,
vendors of paper fans and parasols, cigar sellers, drivers
of calesas all combined to make a terrific crowd. A
vague rumour hovered over the city like a cloud of
noise.

After many twistings and turnings in the narrow,
labyrinthine streets, we at last reached the wished-for
place, which is in no wise handsome externally. A
detachment of soldiers had great difficulty in keeping

296

MALAGA

back the crowd. Though it was scarcely one o'clock
the benches were already filled from top to bottom, and
it was only by dint of using our fists and our tongues
that we succeeded in reaching our stalls. The Malaga
amphitheatre is of a size which really recalls the great
amphitheatres of antiquity ; it can contain twelve or
fifteen thousand spectators and rises to the height of a
five-story dwelling. This suggests what the Roman
arenas must have been, and the attraction of those ter-
rible games in which men fought against wild beasts
before a whole people. No stranger and more gorgeous
spectacle can be imagined than these vast benches
covered with an impatient crowd, which sought to allay
the weariness of waiting by all sorts of jokes of the
most piquant originality. Modern dresses were very
infrequent, and those who wore them were received
with shouts of laughter, roars, and hisses ; so the view
was greatly improved, for the bright-coloured jackets
and sashes, the scarlet shawls of the women, and the
green and yellow striped fans saved the crowd from that
dull, dark aspect which it always has with us.

There was a fairly large number of women, and I
noticed many very pretty ones. A Malaga woman is
known by the uniform golden pallor of her complexion,

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

her cheeks being no more coloured than her brow, by
the long oval face, the rich redness of her lips, the
delicate outline of her nose, and the brilliancy of her
Arab eyes which might easily be supposed painted with
henna, so delicate and long are the eyelashes, especially
towards the temples. I do not know whether the stiff
folds of the red drapery which frames in their faces is
the cause of their serious and passionate look, which
smacks so much of the East, and which the daintier,
more graceful, more coquettish women of Madrid,
of Granada, and of Seville do not possess, these being
always somewhat preoccupied with the effect they pro-
duce. At Malaga I saw most beautiful heads, superb
types, which would offer to an artist of talent a series
of entirely new and valuable studies.

From our point of view it seems strange that women
should be present at a spectacle where a man's life is
imperilled at every moment ; where blood flows in
pools 5 where wretched, ripped-up horses stumble over
their own entrails. One might easily imagine that
such women must be bold-eved vixens, violent in
gesture ; but it would be a mistake. Never did more
Madonna-like faces, more velvety eyes, and more
tender smiles bend over an infant Christ. The sue-

MALAGA

cessive phases of the bull's death are attentively fol-
lowed by pale and charming creatures whom an elegiac
poet would be only too glad to have for Elviras ; the
merit of the strokes is discussed by such pretty lips
that one could wish to hear them speak but of love.
Because they look with dry eyes upon scenes of car-
nage which would cause our sensitive Parisian ladies to
faint, it would be wrong to infer that they are cruel
and lack tenderness ; it does not prevent their being
good, simple-hearted, and sympathetic ; but habit is
everything, and the bloody side of a bull-fight which
most strikes strangers is what least occupies Spaniards,
who pay attention to the skill with which blows are
dealt and the cleverness shown by the toreros, who do
not run such great risks as one might at first fancy.

It was yet but two o'clock, and the sun poured
down a deluge of fire upon the side of the circus upon
which we were seated. How we envied the fortunate
ones who were enjoying the coolness of the shade cast
by the boxes above. After having ridden ninety miles
through the mountains, to remain a whole day under
the African sun was a pretty fine thing for a poor critic
who had, for once, paid for his seat and did not wish to
resign it.

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

The people who occupied the shaded seats chaffed
us incessantly. They sent water-sellers to prevent our
catching fire ; they begged us to light our cigars at the
tip of our noses, and they suggested that we might have
a little oil in order to complete the stew. We replied
as well as we could, and when the shadow, moving
with the day, gave up one of them to the rays of the
sun, there broke out endless laughter and applause.
Thanks to a few jars of water, several dozens of
oranges, and a couple of fans constantly kept in motion,
we avoided being burned up, and we were not quite
cooked or struck with apoplexy when the band sat
down in its gallery and the cavalry patrol began to
clear the arena, which was full of muchachos and
majos, who disappeared, I know not how, into the
general throng, although, mathematically speaking,
there was not room for another person ; but under
certain circumstances a crowd is wonderfully elastic.

An immense sigh of satisfaction arose from the fif-
teen thousand people, whose expectations were at last
about to be fulfilled. The members of the ayunta-
miento were saluted with frantic applause, and when
they entered their box the orchestra began to play
national airs, " I who am a Smuggler," and " Riego's

300

MALAGA

March," which the whole company sang together with
clapping of hands and stamping of feet.

We do not intend to describe here the bull-fight ;
we did so carefully during our stay in Madrid; we
shall merely relate the chief events, the remarkable
features of this fight during which the same combatants
performed for three days running without rest, when
twenty-four bulls and ninety-six horses were slain, al-
though no accident happened to the men save the rip-
ping up of a man's arm ; a wound in no wise dangerous,
which did not prevent his reappearing the following day
in the arena.

At five o'clock sharp the gates of the arena were
opened, and the company which was to perform
marched in procession around the circus. At its
head were the three picadores, Antonio Sanchez and
Jose Trigo, both from Seville, and Francesco Briones
from Puerto Real, hand on hip, lance erect, as grave
as Roman generals ascending in triumph to the Capi-
tol. The saddles of their horses had the name of the
owner of the circus marked with gilded nails. The
capadores, or chulos, wearing their three-cornered hats
and wrapped in their brilliant mantles, followed.
Close behind them were the banderilleros in their

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Figaro costume. At the end of the procession, alone
and majestic, the two matadores, the swords, Montes
de Chiclana and Jose Parra de Madrid. Montes had
with him his faithful quadrille, a most important mat-
ter for the security of a bull-fight ; for in these times
of political dissensions it often happens that Christino
toreros will not help Carlist toreros when they are
in danger, and vice versa. The procession was closed
by the significant team of mules intended to carry
off the horses and bulls.

The fight was about to begin. The alguazil, in
civilian dress, who was to carry to the attendant the
keys of the toril, and who rode very unskilfully a
spirited horse, prefaced the tragedy by an amusing
farce. He first lost his hat and then his stirrups, his
trousers came up to his knees in the most grotesque
fashion ; and the gate having been maliciously opened
for the bull before he had time to withdraw from
the arena, his terror made him still more ridiculous
through the contortions which he indulged in on his
horse. Nevertheless, he was not thrown, to the great
disappointment of the rabble. The bull, dazzled by
the torrent of light which flooded the arena, did not
at first perceive him, and let him go without charging

302

MALAGA

him. So it was in the midst of an immense Homeric,
Olympic burst of laughter that the fight began; but
soon silence fell, the bull having ripped up the first
picador's horse and thrown the second.

We could look but at Montes, whose name is
popular all over Spain, and whose prowess is sung
in a thousand marvellous tales. Montes was born
at Chiclana, near Cadiz. He is a man of forty to
forty-three years of age, somewhat above the average
height, serious-looking, of quiet mien, pale, olive
complexion, with nothing noticeable about him save
the mobility of his eyes, which in his impassible face
alone seem endowed with life. He appears supple
rather than robust, and owes his success more to
his coolness, to his wonderful eye, and to his thorough
knowledge of the art, than to his muscular strength.
As soon as a bull has stepped into the arena, Montes
knows whether it is short or long sighted, whether
it is frank or cunning, whether it is light or heavy,
whether it will close its eyes as it gores or whether
it will keep them open. Thanks to these observations,
which are as swift as thought, he is always ready to
defend himself. However, as he carries cool rashness
to extremes, he has during the course of his career

303

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

been gored more than once, for he bears a cicatrice
on his cheek, and on more than one occasion he has
been carried off dangerously wounded.

He wore that day a costume of apple-green silk
embroidered with silver, exceedingly rich and elegant ;
for Montes is wealthy, and if he still takes part in
bull-fights, it is from love of the art and the need
of excitement, for his fortune amounts to more than
fifty thousand douros, an enormous sum if one bears
in mind the cost of the costumes which matadores
have to wear, — a complete suit costing from fifteen
hundred to two thousand francs, — and the inces-
sant trips which they make from one city to another
accompanied by their quadrilles.

A-Iontes is not content, like other espadas, to simply
slay the bull when the death signal has been given;
he watches the whole arena, directs the combat, goes
to the rescue of the imperilled picadores or chulos.
More than one torero has owed his life to his inter-
vention. A bull, which was not to be drawn away
by the capas agitated before him, was goring the
horse which he had overthrown, and was trying to
gore the rider, sheltered by the body of his steed.
Montes got hold of the fierce beast by the tail and

MALAGA

swung it around two or three times to its intense
disgust, amid the frantic applause of the whole com-
pany, and thus gave time to pick up the picador.
Sometimes he plants himself right in front of the
bull, his arms crossed, his eyes fixed upon him. The
brute stops suddenly, daunted by the clear glance,
sharp and cold as a sword-blade. Then break out
indescribable shouts and howls and vociferations,
stamping of feet and explosions of bravos. Every-
body goes crazy, the thousands of spectators, drunk
with brandy, sunshine, and blood, become absolutely
hysterical ; handkerchiefs are waved, hats thrown in
the air, and Montes, the one calm individual in
the multitude, enjoys silently his deep satisfaction,
and bows slightly like a man capable of far greater
deeds. We can understand that a man should risk
his life every minute for such applause. It is not
paying too dear for it. Oh ! golden-voiced singers,
oh ! fairy-footed dancers, actors of all kindsj emperors,
poets, who imagine you have excited enthusiasm, you
have never heard Montes applauded.

Montes' fashion of slaying is remarkable for its
accuracy and for the certainty and felicity of his
stroke. In his case all thought of danger vanishes ;

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

he is so cool, so thoroughly master of himself, he
seems so certain of success that the fight appears to
be but a pastime. Even the excitement itself is
somewhat diminished; it is impossible to fear for
his life; he will strike the bull when he pleases, where
he pleases, and how he pleases. The chances of
such a duel are too unequal. The least skilful
matador sometimes produces a greater effect through
the risks and chances which he takes. This no
doubt may strike some as very refined barbarity, but
dilettanti, or those who have seen bull-fights and
have become excited over a bold, brave bull, will
easily understand us. An episode which occurred
on the last day of the fight will prove the truth of
our assertion, and to what a degree the Spanish carry
impartiality towards man and beast.

A superb black bull had just been let into the
arena. From the abrupt way in which it emerged
from the ' toril the connoisseurs formed the very
highest opinion of its bravery. It united all the
points of a fighting bull : its horns were long and
sharp, the points well turned ; its limbs, clean, fine,
and muscular, promised great speed; its heavy dewlap
and thin, strong flanks gave proof of mighty strength.

306

MALAGA

In the herd ft was known as Napoleon, that being
the only name which answered to its unquestioned
superiority. Without the least hesitation it charged
the picador posted near the gates, threw him down
with his horse, which was killed on the spot, and
charged the second who was no luckier, and whom
there was scarcely time to pass over the fence, bruised
and crushed by his fall. In less than fifteen minutes
seven horses were lying on the sand.

The chulos waved their coloured capas, but from
a distance, and did not go very far from the pali-
sades, springing on the other side of them as soon
as Napoleon even looked as if he would move in
their direction. Montes himself appeared somewhat
agitated, and once even he put his foot on the ledge
of the fence ready to spring over in case of alarm
and of too rapid pursuit, a thing which he had not
done on the preceding days. The spectators' delight
was expressed by noisy acclaims, and the most flat-
tering compliments were showered upon the bull from
all sides. A further proof of the animal's prowess car-
ried enthusiasm to the highest degree of exasperation.
A picador's understudy — for the two chief men were
hors de combat — was waiting, lance in rest, the charge

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

of the terrible Napoleon, which, heedless of the wound
in the shoulder, caught the horse under the belly, with
one jerk made him fall on his fore legs upon the edge
of the fence, and with a second, raising his hind
quarters, sent him with his master flying on the other
side of the barrier in the flagged passageway which
runs around the arena.

This feat was welcomed with thunders of applause.
The bull was master of the arena, which he trav-
ersed like a conqueror, amusing himself for lack of
adversaries in turning over and tossing the body
of the horse which he had ripped up. The stock of
victims was exhausted, there were no more horses
left in the circus stable to give to the picadors; the
banderilleros were astride of the fence, afraid to go
down to worry with their darts that terrible gladiator,
whose fury unquestionably did not need to be excited.
The spectators, irritated at the wait, shouted for the
banderillas, and to throw into the fire the alcalde
because he did not give the order. At last, at a sign
from the Governor of the city, a banderillero left the
group and planted two darts in the neck of the mad-
dened beast, fleeing as fast as he could, but not quite
fast enough, for the horn touched his arm and ripped

3^8

MALAGA

up his sleeve* Then, in spite of the howls and
shouts of the people, the alcalde gave the death
signal, and signed Montes to take his muleta and
sword, in spite of all the rules of the bull-fight
which insist that a bull shall have received at least
four pairs of banderillas before it is given up to the
sword of the matador.

Montes, instead of proceeding as usual to the centre
of the ring, stood some twenty steps from the fence
for safety in case of misfortune. He was very pale,
and without indulging in any tricks and coquetries
of courage, he unfolded his scarlet muleta and called
upon the bull, which did not need to be asked twice.
Montes performed three or four passes with the
muleta, holding his sword horizontally at the height
of the beast's eyes, which suddenly fell as if struck
by lightning, and expired after a convulsive bound.
The sword had entered his brow and struck the brain,
a stroke which is forbidden by the laws of tauromachy ;
for the matador is bound to pass his sword between
the horns of the animal and to strike it between the
shoulders, which increases the danger for the man
and gives a slight chance to his adversary.

When the stroke was understood, for it had been

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

delivered with the quickness of thought, a shout of
indignation arose from all parts of the circus ; a storm
of insults and hisses broke with incredible tumult and
noise. " Butcher ! assassin ! brigand ! thief ! galley
slave ! executioner ! " were the mildest of the expres-
sions used. " To Ceuta with Montes ! " " Burn him
alive ! " " Set the dogs on him ! " " Death to the
alcalde ! " sounded from all the seats. Never have
I seen such fury, and I confess with a blush that
I shared it. Presently shouts were insufficient, and
the poor devil was assaulted with fans, hats, sticks,
jars full of water, and pieces of the benches which
the spectators tore up. There was still another bull
to be slain, but its death passed unperceived in the
midst of this horrible bacchanal, and it was Jose Parra
the second espada, who slew it with a clever stroke.
As for Montes, he was livid, green with rage. He
bit his lips to the blood, although he attempted to
appear very calm and leaned with affected grace upon
the hilt of his sword, the ensanguined point of which
he had wiped in the sand, against all rule. How
slight is one's hold on popularity ! No one could
have imagined the day before, and the day before
that, that so consummate an artist, one so thoroughly

310

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M A L A G A

master of his public as Montes, could be so rigorously
punished for a breach of the rules, no doubt com-
mitted through imperious necessity in view of the
extraordinary agility, vigour, and power of the animal.
The fight over, he got into a calesa, followed by his
quadrille, swearing that never again would he set
foot in Malaga. I know not whether he kept his
word and remembered longer the insults of the last
day than the triumphs of the preceding two. I now
think that the public of Malaga was unjust towards
the great Montes de Chiclana, every one of whose
strokes had been superb and who had given proof
on dangerous occasions of cool heroism and admirable
skill, so that the people, delighted, had presented him
with all the bulls which he had slain, and had allowed
him to cut off their ears as a mark of ownership,
so that they could be claimed neither by the Hospital
nor by the contractor.

Dazed, intoxicated, filled with violent emotions,
we returned to our parador, hearing as we went along
the streets nothing but praise for the bull and curses
against Montes. That very evening, in spite of fa-
tigue, I went to the theatre, wishing to pass without
transition from the bloody realism of the circus to

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the intellectual emotion of the stage. The contrast
was striking. In the one place a crowd and noise,
in the other loneliness and silence. The theatre was
almost deserted, and a few scattered spectators sat
here and there upon the empty benches ; and yet
the play was " The Lovers of Teruel," a drama by
Eugenio Hartzenbusch, one of the most remarkable
works of the modern Spanish school, written in prose
and in verse. As far as a stranger can judge of the
style of a language which he can never thoroughly
know, the verse of Hartzenbusch appears to me
superior to his prose. His dialogue in prose seems
to me imitated from the modern French melodramas
and is marked by heaviness and pomp. With all
its defects of " The Lovers of Teruel " is a liter-
ary work much superior to the adapted and misadapted
translations of our boulevard plays which at present
are met with in every theatre in Spain. A comic
saynete followed the serious play. The saynetes re-
semble our vaudevilles, but the plot is less complex,
and they often consist merely of a few detached
scenes like the intermezzo of an Italian comedy.

The performance was closed by a national dance,
performed by two couples of dancers in fairly satis-

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MALAGA

factory fashion. The Spanish dancers, although they
have not the finish, the accuracy, the style of PVench
dancers, are greatly superior, I think, in grace and
charm. They look like women who dance, and not
like dancers, which is a very different thing. Their
method has no relation whatever to that of the French
school. In the latter, immobility and uprightness of
the bust are expressly recommended, and the body
scarcely ever shares the motion of the legs ; in Spain
the feet rarelv leave the ground ; it is the body that
dances, the back that curves, the hips that yield, the
waist that is twisted with the suppleness of an almeh
or an adder. In some of the poses the shoulders
of the dancer almost touch the ground, the arms,
limp and dead, are as flexible and soft as an untied
scarf, the hands seem scarcely able to clap the ivory
castanets with their golden tressed cord ; and yet
in another moment bounds like those of a young
jaguar follow the voluptuous languor, and prove that
the bodies, soft as silk, are provided with muscles
of steel. The Moorish almehs still cling to this
method. Their dance consists of harmoniously las-
civious undulations of the torso, the hips, and the
back, the arms being thrown back over the head.

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Arab traditions have been preserved in the Spanish
national steps, especially in Andalusia.

The Spanish male dancers, although mediocre, have
a bold, cavalier, gallant air which I greatly prefer to
the tasteless and equivocal graces of ours. They
appear to think neither of themselves nor of the pub-
lic ; their every glance, their every smile is addressed
to their partner, with whom they always seem to be
passionately in love, and whom they are prepared to
defend against all comers. They possess a sort of
fierce grace and insolent pose which is quite peculiar
to them. If they were to wipe off their rouge, they
would make excellent banderilleros, and could spring
from the stage into the arena.

The Malaguena^ the Malaga national dance, is
charmingly poetic. The cavalier first appears, his
sombrero pulled down over his eyes, wrapped in his
scarlet cloak like a hidalgo in search of adventures.
The lady enters draped in her mantilla, fan in hand,
with the airs of a woman who is going for a turn on
the Alameda. The cavalier tries to see the face of the
mysterious siren ; the coquette handles her fan so well,
opens and shuts it so exactly at the right time, turns it
so promptly up to her pretty face, that the disappointed

MALAGA

gallant withdraws somewhat and bethinks himself of
another stratagem. He begins clinking his castanets
under his cloak. At the sound the lady listens, smiles,
her bosom heaves, she beats time with the tip of her
little satin shoe ; in spite of herself she throws away her
fan and her mantilla and appears in brilliant dancing-
dress, sparkling with spangles and ornaments, a rose
in her hair, a great tortoise-shell comb at the back
of her head. The gallant throws ofF his mask and
his cloak, and the two perform a dance delightfully
novel.

As I came back by the seaside, which reflected on
its burnished steel surface the pale orb of the moon, I
thought of the striking contrast between the crowd at
the circus and the solitude at the theatre, of the eager-
ness of the multitude for brutal facts and its indiffer-
ence to the works of the intellect. As a poet, I again
envied the gladiator; I regretted to have given up
action for reverie. The night before in the same
theatre had been given a play by Lope de Vega, which
had not attracted more people than the work of the
young writer ; so both the genius of the past and the
talent of the present age are not considered equal to
one sword-stroke of Montes !

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

The other theatres in Spain are not better attended
than that at Malaga, not even the del Principe at
Madrid, where nevertheless there is a very great actor,
Julian Romero, and an excellent actress, Matilda Diez.
The old Spanish dramatic vein seems to have been
exhausted forever, and yet never did a fuller stream
flow in so broad a bed, never was there such prodigious,
inexhaustible fertility. Our most facile writers of
vaudevilles are yet a long way from Lope de Vega,
who had no co-workers, and whose works are so
numerous that the exact number is unknown and that
there is scarcely a complete edition of them. Cal-
deron de la Barca, apart from his unrivalled comedies
de capa y espada (dramas of cloak and sword), wrote
innumerable autos sacramentales^ a sort of Catholic
Mysteries, in which strange depth of thought and sin-
gularity of conception are joined to enchanting poetry
and to the most flowery elegance. It would take folio
catalogues to enumerate merely the titles of the works
of Lope de Rueda, Montalban, Guevara, Quevedo,
Tirso, Rojas, Moreto, Guillen de Castro, Diamante,
and many others. It is impossible to realise how
many plays were written for Spain during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries ; it would be as easv to count

MALAGA

the leaves in xhe forest and the sand on the seashore.
Most of these plays are written in octosyllabic verse
mingled with assonances, and printed in two columns
on cheap quarto paper, with a coarse engraving by way
of frontispiece. They form pamphlets of six or eight
leaves. The booksellers' shops are full of them ; thou-
sands are seen suspended pell-mell amid the ballads and
the versified legends sold at the open-air bookstalls.
The epigram addressed to a too fertile Roman poet,
who was burned after his death on a pyre formed of
his own works, might without exaggeration be applied
to most Spanish dramatists. They have a fertility of
invention, a way of crowding in events and complicat-
ing the plot, which it is impossible to give anv idea of.
Spaniards invented the drama, long before Shakespeare;
their theatre is Romanticist in the fullest sense of the
word. Apart from some puerile exhibitions of erudi-
tion, their plays owe nothing either to the Greeks or
the Latins, and, as Lope de Vega says in his " New
Art of Writing Plays," " I lock up the rules with
seven keys."

Spanish dramatists do not appear to have troubled
much about depicting character, although in every scene
one comes upon piquant and delicate observations.

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Man is not studied philosophically, and one does
not often meet in their dramas with those individual
figures so frequent in the work of the great English
dramatist, which are copied from life, which help on
the action but indirectly, and whose sole purpose is to
represent one side of the human soul, an original per-
sonality, or else to reflect the poet's thought. With
the Spaniards the author rarely shows his personality
except at the end of the drama, when he begs the
spectator to pardon his faults.

The principal motive in Spanish plays is the point
of honour, which is to the Spanish play what Fate is
to the Greek tragedy. Its inflexible laws, its cruel
consequences, easily give rise to dramatic scenes of the
highest interest. El pundonor^ a sort of chivalric relig-
ion, with its code of laws, its statutes, its refinement, is
far superior to the ijdjuKv., to the Fate of antiquity,
whose blindly dealt strokes fall at haphazard upon both
the guilty and the innocent. One often rebels, when
reading the Greek dramatists, at the situation of the
hero, who is equally criminal whether he acts or does
not act. The Castilian point of honour is always per-
fectly logical and in agreement with itself. Besides, it
is only the exaggeration of all human virtues carried to

MALAGA

the highest degree of susceptibility j the hero always
preserves a noble, solemn attitude, even in the midst of
his most horrible outbursts of anger and in his most
atrocious vengeance. It is always in the name of loy-
alty, of conjugal faith, of respect for ancestors, of
the integrity of his name, that he draws from its sheath
his great sword with the iron shell-guard, even against
those whom he loves with all his soul and whom an
imperious necessity compels him to slay. The interest
in most of the plays of the old Spanish drama, the
touch of sympathetic interest so keenly felt by the
spectators, who, under similar circumstances would
have acted exactly as the characters in the play, springs
from the struggle between passions and the point of
honour. With so fruitful a motive, one so deeply
rooted in the manners of the time, the prodigious fer-
tility of the old dramatists of the Peninsula is easily
understood. Another no less abundant source of inter-
est lies in virtuous actions, in chivalrous devotion, in
sublime renunciation, in unchanging fidelity, in super-
human passion, in ideal refinement, which resist the
best-laid plots and the most complicated ambushes.
In this case the poet seems to intend to exhibit to the
spectators a complete model of human perfection. All

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the qualities he can think of he bestows upon his prince
or his princess; he makes them more anxious to pre-
serve their purity than is even the white ermine, which
would rather die than stain its snowy fur.

A deep Catholic and feudal feeling breathes through
all this drama, which is absolutely national in its origin,
in its matter, and in its form. The division into three
days adopted by Spanish authors is unquestionably the
most reasonable and logical. The exposition, the knot,
and the termination, — such is the natural distribution
of every well understood dramatic action, and we
should be wise to adopt it in place of the old division
into five acts, two of which are so often useless, the
second and the fourth. It should not, however, be
supposed that the old Spanish plays were nothing if not
sublime. The grotesque, that indispensable element of
mediaeval art, is introduced into it in the person of the
gradoso, of the bobo (clown), who enlivens the serious
situation or action by more or less risgue jokes and
pleasantries, and produces by the side of the hero the
same effect as those deformed dwarfs with variegated
jackets, playing with greyhounds taller than them-
selves, which are represented by the side of the king
or prince in the old portraits in the galleries.

320

M A L A G A

Moratin, the author of the " Si de las Ninos," and
" el Cofc," whose tomb is in the Pere Lachaise ceme-
tery in Paris, is the last representative of the Spanish
dramatic art, as the old painter Goya, who died at
Bordeaux in 1828, was the last descendant of the great
Velasquez.

Nowadays Spanish theatres give little else than trans-
lations of French melodramas and vaudevilles. At
Jaen, in the heart of Andalusia, they were playing
"The Bell-ringer of Saint Paul's"; at Cadiz, within
two steps of Africa, " The Street Boy of Paris." The
saynetes, once so gay, so original, of such marked local
savour, are now only imitations borrowed from the
repertory of the Theatres des Varietes. Leaving out
Martinez de la Rosa and Antonio Gil y Zarate, who
already belong to a less recent period, Spain counts,
nevertheless, a number of young men of talent and
promise ; but popular attention in Spain as in France
is drawn in another direction through the seriousness
of events. Hartzenbusch, the author of " The Lovers
of Teruel " ; Castro y Orozo, the author of " Frev
Luis de Leon, or the Age and the World " ; Zorillo,
whose drama, " El Rey y el Zapatero," was so suc-
cessful ; Breton de los Herreros, the Duke of Rivas,

321

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Larra, who killed himself for love ; Esproncedo, whose
death has but recently been announced, and who put
into his work a force and passionate energy sometimes
worthy of his model, Byron, are — alas ! of the latter
two we must say were — writers full of merit, ingen-
ious, elegant, facile poets, who might be placed side by
side with the old masters if they did not lack what we
all lack, — certainty, a firm starting-point, a stock of
ideas shared with the public. The point of honour
and the heroism of the old plays is no longer under-
stood or seems ridiculous, and modern beliefs are not
yet sufficiently formulated for poets to express them.
So we must not blame overmuch the crowd which in
the meantime invades the circuses and seeks emotions
where they are to be found. It is not the people's
fault, after all, if the theatres are not more attractive;
it is so much the worse for the poets, if they let the
gladiators conquer them.

On the whole it is better for the mind and the heart
to see bold men slay a wild beast in the face of heaven
thin to hear an actor without talent singing an obscene
vaudeville or chattering wretched literature behind
smoky footlights.

322

TRAFELS IN SPAIN

CORDOVA

UP to this time we had made acquaintance with
two-wheeled galleys only \ we were now to
learn something of the four-wheeled galley. One of
these pleasant vehicles, filled already with a Spanish
family, was about to start for Cordova. We com-
pleted the load. Imagine a fairly low cart provided
with open-work side-straps, and having for flooring an
esparto net in which are heaped up trunks and pack-
ages without much care for the projecting and re-
entering angles. On top are thrown two or three
mattresses, or, to speak more accurately, linen sacks in
which have been inserted a few lumps of uncarded
wool ; upon these mattresses, stretched transversely,
the poor travellers, in an attitude — may we be for-
given the dreadful comparison! — very like that of
calves carried to market. Their feet are not bound,
but their position is scarce improved. The cart, cov-
ered by a stout awning over hoops, is driven by a
mayoral and drawn by four mules.

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

The family with which we were travelling was that
of an engineer, fairly well instructed and speaking
French easily. It was accompanied by a tall rascal of
uncouth mien, who had formerly been a brigand in
Jose Maria's band, and now was a mine inspector.
He followed the galley on horseback, knife in belt,
carbine on holster. The engineer seemed to think a
great deal of him, and praised his probity as if his
former profession inspired him with no uneasiness on
the subject. It is true that when speaking of Jose
Maria he repeatedly said of him that he was a worthy,
honest man. This opinion, which would appear to us
slightly paradoxical as applied to a highwayman, is
shared in Andalusia by the most honourable people.
Spain has remained African in this respect, and bandits
are easily accepted as heroes, — a curious connection
less strange than seems at first sight, especially in
France ; because where the imagination of the people
is so highly impressionable, contempt for death, bold-
ness, coolness, prompt and audacious decision, skill
and strength, the sort of grandeur which attaches to a
man in revolt against society, — are not all those
qualities, which act so powerfully on minds little
civilised, the very traits which form great characters ;

324

C Q R D O \' A

and are the people so very wrong to admire these en-
ergetic natures, although the use to which they turn
them is worthy of condemnation ?

The road along which we were travelling climbed
up and down, in rather abrupt fashion, a district inter-
sected by hills and narrow valleys, the bottom of which
formed dry river-beds full of huge stones, which jolted
us atrociously and drew sharp cries from the women
and children. On the way we noticed some remark-
ably poetic and richly coloured sunset effects. The
distant mountains turned purple and violet, with a
golden haze of extraordinary warmth and intensity over
all. The complete absence of vegetation gave to
the landscape, composed solely of soil and sky, an
appearance of grand nudity and fierce barrenness,
the equivalent of which is nowhere else to be met
with, and which painters have never succeeded in
reproducing.

We halted for a few hours at nightfall in a little
hamlet of three or four houses, to rest the mules and
to take some nourishment. At about one in the morn-
ing we started again, and in spite of the extraordinary
jolts and the children of the mining engineer, who
rolled over us, and the wav our heads were bumped

325

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

against the sides, we were not long in going to sleep.
When the sun awakened us, we were near Caratraca,
an insignificant village which was not marked on the
map and is known only for its sulphur springs, which
are very efficacious in skin diseases ; they attract to
this lonesome place a suspicious-looking lot of people
with whom it would be unhealthy to come in contact.
These people gamble frightfully, and although it was
yet very early, the cards and the gold-pieces were al-
ready flying over the table. It was hideous to see
these earthy, greenish-faced patients made more hide-
ous still by rapacity, and the convulsive fingers slowly
put out to seize their prey.

The houses of Caratraca, like those of every Anda-
lusian village, are whitewashed, which with the bright-
coloured tiles and the leaves of the vines and shrubs
which surround them, gives them an air of comfort
and ease very different from the opinion which most
people in Europe have of Spanish filthiness, an opinion
which is widespread but which can have arisen only
through some wretched hamlets in Castile, of which
we have more than the equivalent in Brittany and
Sologne. In the courtyard my glances were at-
tracted by coarse frescoes representing In most primi-

326

CORDOVA

tive fashiorf scenes from bull-fights. Around the
paintings were stanzas in honour of Paquirro Montes
and his quadrille.

After we had had our siesta, the mules were har-
nessed to the galley, each one of us resumed his
place upon the mattress, the escopetero climbed on
his little mountain-horse, the mayoral collected pebbles
to throw at his animals, and we started again. The
country we were traversing was wild without being
picturesque : bare, rough hills, stony torrent-beds like
cicatrices cut in the ground by the devastating winter
rains, woods of olive trees, the pale foliage of which,
covered with dust, suggested no idea of verdure or
coolness ; here and there on the gullied banks of
chalk or tufa ravines, a clump of fennel turned white
by the heat •, on the dusty road the tracks of serpents
and vipers; over all a sky as hot as an oven, not a
breath of air, not a pufF of wind, — the gray sand
thrown up by the hoofs of the mules fell dead. A
sun fit to heat iron white-hot beat down upon the
awning of our galley, inside of which we were ripen-
ing like melons under glass. From time to time we
alighted and walked for some distance, keeping within
the shadow of the horse or the cart, and climbed back

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

with unstifFened legs into our place, stumbling over the
children and the mother, for we could only reach our
corner by crawling on all-fours under the low arch of
the galley hoops.

By dint of crossing ravines and quagmires and cut-
ting across fields to shorten the way, we managed to
lose the road. Our mayoral, in hopes of coming across
it, went on as if he were quite sure of where he was
going J for cosarios and guides will never confess that
they are lost until the very last moment, when they
have taken you fifteen or eighteen miles ofF the road.
It is true that nothing was easier than to lose this
astounding road, scarcely beaten, cut every moment
by ravines. We were in the midst of great fields with
scattered, stunted olive trees with twisted trunks, with-
out any trace of human dwelling or of living beings.
Since morning we had met but one half-naked mu-
chacho driving before him, in a cloud of dust, a
dozen black porkers. Night fell. To complete our
troubles, there was no moon, and we had nothing
but the faint light of the stars to go by. Every few
minutes the mayoral got down from his seat and felt
the ground with his hands to ascertain if there was
not a road, or a wheel-track which might lead us

3^8

CORDOVA

back to the road •, but his investigations were useless,
and much against his will he was compelled to tell
us that he had lost his way and did not know where he
was. He could not understand it ; he had travelled
twenty times along the road and could have gone to
Cordova with his eyes shut.

However, after having wandered at haphazard for
two or three hours, we perceived far in the distance
a light shining through branches like a glow-worm.
We immediately made it our polar star and drove
in its direction as straight as possible, running the
risk of upsetting at every step. Sometimes a hollow
in the ground concealed it from our sight, and then
all nature seemed a blank ; then it reappeared, and
our hopes rose again. At last we got close enough
to a farm to make out the window, the heaven whence
shone our star in the shape of a brass lamp. Ox-wag-
gons and agricultural implements scattered here and
there wholly reassured us, for we might have fallen
upon some cut-throat place, some smugglers' den.
The dogs, having scented us, were barking loudly, so
that very soon the whole farm was up. Peasants
came out gun in hand, to learn the cause of the
night alarm, and having ascertained that we were

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honest travellers who had lost their way, they politely
asked us to come and rest in the farmhouse.

It was their supper time. An old woman, wrinkled,
tanned, and almost mummified, was preparing in a red
earthen jar a huge gaspacho. Five or six tall grey-
hounds, thin loined, broad chested, with splendid heads,
worthy of being in a royal pack, followed the move-
ments of the old woman with the most sustained at-
tention and the most melancholy and admiring air
imaginable. But that delightful meal was not intended
for them ; in Andalusia it is men, not dogs, to whom
is served a soup of bread crusts soaked in water. Cats
deprived of ears and tail, — for in Spain these orna-
mental superfluities are cut off, — and who looked like
Japanese monsters, also watched, but from a greater
distance, the appetising preparations.

We were given for guide a young fellow who was
thoroughly acquainted with the roads, and who took us
without difficulty to Ecija, which we reached about
ten in the morning.

The approach to Ecija is rather picturesque. It is
reached by a bridge, at one end of which stands a
monumental arcaded gate. The bridge spans the river,
which is the Granada Genii, obstructed by the ruins of

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antique arches and mill-weirs. At the other end one
enters a square planted with trees and adorned with
two monuments in poor taste. The one is a gilt statue
of the Virgin placed upon a pillar of which the hol-
lowed out base forms a sort of chapel, ornamented
with pots of artificial flowers, ex votos^ wreaths of elder-
pith, and all the gewgaws of Southern devotion. The
other is a giant Saint Christopher, also in gilt metal,
leaning upon a palm tree, a stick proportionate to his
height, and carrying on his shoulder with the most pro-
digious contraction of muscles and with efforts which
would suffice to lift a house, an exceedingly small Child
Jesus, delightful in its delicacy and daintiness. This
colossus, attributed to the Florentine sculptor Torre-
giani, who broke Michael Angelo's nose with a blow
of his fist, is perched upon a column of the Salomonic
order (that is the name given here to twisted pillars)
in pale rose granite, the spiral of which ends half-way
up in extravagant volutes and foliage.

I like very much statues thus placed ; they are more
effective and can be seen from a greater distance and
more advantageously. Ordinary pedestals are usually
massive and heavy, and thus diminish the lightness of
the figures they upbear.

TRAVELS IN SPAIn"""^'"

Ecija, although lying outside of the beaten track
of tourists and consequently little known, is neverthe-
less a most interesting town, very original and charac-
teristic. The steeples, which form the most striking
feature of its silhouette, are neither Byzantine nor
Gothic nor Renaissance; they are Chinese, or rather,
Japanese. They might be mistaken for some miao
consecrated to Confucius, Buddha, or Fo, for they are
covered all over with porcelain or china tiles most
brilliantly coloured, ribbed with green, and white var-
nished tiles laid checker-board wise, which have the
most peculiar appearance possible. The rest of the
architecture is no less fantastic, and the love of the gro-
tesque is carried to its utmost limit. It consists of a
maze of gildings, incrustations, breccias and coloured
marbles used as if they were stuffs; wreaths of flowers,
love-knots, pufFy angels all painted and rouged, of in-
conceivable richness and in sublimely bad taste.

The Calle de los Caballeros, where live the nobility
and on which are situated the finest hotels, is marvel'
lous in this respect. It is hard to believe that one is
in a real street, between houses inhabited by actual
beings. There is not a straight line in it ; its balconies,
its iron-work, its friezes, — everything is twisted and

CORDOVA

turned, and'blooms out into flowers, volutes, and foliage.
There is not a single inch which is not hatched, fes-
tooned, gilded, embroidered, or painted. All that rococo
can produce of most rocky disorder, all that French
taste, even at the worst times, has always known how
to avoid, is here most luxuriant. This Pompadour-
Dutch-Chinese style amuses and startles one in Anda-
lusia. Most of the houses are whitewashed of a
dazzling whiteness which stands out against the dark
blue of the sky, and their flat roofs and their small
windows and look-outs made us think of Africa, — an
idea confirmed by the heat of ninety degrees, which is
the average temperature of the place in cool summers.
Ecija is called the Andalusian Frying Pan, and never
did any place better deserve its name. Situated on low
ground it is surrounded by sandy hills which keep off
the wind and reflect the rays of the sun. Man lives
there in a state of constant stew. Nevertheless, we
bravely traversed it in every direction while waiting for
breakfast. The Plaza Major is very striking, with its
pillared houses, its rose windows, its arcades and pro-
jecting balconies. Our inn was rather comfortable,
and we were served a most decent meal, which we
enjoyed with pardonable sensuality after our many

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privations. A long sleep in a well closed, well dark-
ened, well watered room fully rested us, and when at
about three o'clock we climbed back into the galley,
we looked quite serene and resigned.

The road from Ecija to Carlotta, where we were
to sleep, runs through an uninteresting district, barren
and dusty ; at least, so it appeared to us at that season,
and it has left no particular mark on our remembrance.
From time to time a few clumps of olive trees or of
green oaks showed here and there, and the aloes
spread their bluish foliage, which always produces a
striking effect.

Carlotta, where we stopped for the night, is a hamlet
of no importance. The inn is an old convent which
was first used as a barracks, as is almost always the
case in times of revolution, military life being that
which most easily adapts itself to buildings constructed
for monkish life. Long arcaded corridors formed an
open gallery upon the four sides of a court. In the
centre of one of these vawned the black mouth of a
huge well, very deep, which promised us the delightful
treat of clear, cold water. As I bent over the edge, I
saw that the interior was hung with plants of the lov-
liest green, which had grown in the interstices of the

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CORDOVA

stones ; and h was in wells, indeed, that one had to
look to find verdure and coolness, for the heat was
comparable to that in the neighbourhood of a great fire.
The temperature of a hot-house in which tropical plants
are raised can alone give any idea of it ; the very air was
burning, and the pufts of wind seemed to carry fire
with them.

We left Carlotta at about three o'clock in the
afternoon, and in the evening we halted at a wretched
gipsy hut, the roof of which consisted merely of
branches of trees, placed like coarse thatch upon cross
poles. After having drunk a few glasses of water,
I lay quietly down in front of the door, and while
looking into the deep azure of the sky I was not
long in sinking into a deep sleep, just as if I were
King on the softest of beds. Never did a lovelier
and more serene night robe the earth in its blue
velvet mantle. At about midnight the galley started
again, and at dawn we were within half a league
of Cordova.

The description of our halts and our days' journeys
might lead to the belief that Cordova is a long way
from Malaga, and that we had travelled over an
enormous extent of road, during the four days and

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a half, yet the distance traversed is only about twenty
Spanish leagues, or about ninety miles ; but the car-
riage was heavily laden, the road abominable, and
there were no relays of mules ready. Add to this
the intolerable heat, which would have killed both
men and beasts if we had ventured out while the
sun was high. We look back pleasantly upon that
slow and toilsome journey. Swift travelling is devoid
of charm. You are carried along as in a whirlwind
and you have no time to see anything. If you are
to get to the end of your trip at once, you might
just as well remain at home. What I enjoy is the
travelling itself and not the arrival.

Cordova is entered from the Ecija side by a bridge
across the Guadalquivir which is fairly wide at this
place. Close by are to be seen the ruins of an Arab
aqueduct. The end of the bridge is defended by a
great square, crenellated tower flanked by casemates
of more recent construction. The city gates were
not yet open. A multitude of ox-teams, enormous,
majestic, adorned with tiaras of esparto ; of mules
and white donkeys laden with cut straw ; of peasants
with sugar-loaf hats, wearing cloaks of brown wool,
falling before and behind like a priest's cape, and

CORDOVA

which are put on by passing the head through a hole
cut in the centre of the piece of stuff, were waiting
for the opening of the gates with the phlegm and
patience usual to Spaniards, who appear never to be
in a hurry. A similar crowd at the gates of Paris
would have made a horrible noise, and have indulged
in insults and invectives. In this case no sound was
heard but the trembling of a copper bell on a mule's
collar and the silvery tinkle of a leading ass changing
its position or resting its head upon the neck of a
long-eared brother.

We profited by the halt to examine leisurely the
situation of Cordova. A fine gate, looking like a
triumphal arch of the Ionic order and in such good
taste that it might have been thought to be Roman,
formed the majestic entrance to the city of the
Caliphs, though I should have preferred one of those
beautiful horse-shoe Moorish arches such as one sees
in Granada. A mosque-cathedral rises above the
walls and the roofs of the city, resembling a citadel
rather than a temple, with its high walls broken by
the Arab battlements and the heavy Gothic dome
resting upon its eastern platform. These walls, it
must be confessed, are washed with an abominable

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yellow colour. Without being of those who are
particularly fond of mouldy, leprous-looking buildings,
we entertain a peculiar horror for this hideous squash-
colour, which so delights priests, vestries, and chapters
in all countries, for they never fail to use it upon
the marvellous cathedrals which are intrusted to them.
Buildings must be painted and always have been, even
in the most artistic days, only the shade and the
kind of wash should be selected with extreme care.

At last the gates were opened, and we had first the
exciting pleasure of being searched pretty minutely by
the custom-house officers, after which we were left
free to repair with our trunks to the nearest inn.

Cordova has more of an African look than any
other Andalusian city : its streets, or rather, lanes, —
the disorderly paving of which resembles the dry bed
of a torrent, — strewn with the short straw which
falls from the loads carried by the asses, in no wise
recall the manners and habits of Europeans. You
walk between endless chalky walls with a few grated
and barred windows ; you meet a beggar with repul-
sive face, a devotee in her black hood, or a majo
riding swiftly by upon a white-harnessed, brown horse
which strikes sparks from the stones as it goes. If

CORDOVA

the Moors were to return, they would not have to
alter much before settling down. The idea that one
may have of Cordova, that it has traceried spires
and houses with Gothic windows, is entirely incorrect.
The universal use of whitewash gives a uniform tone
to all the buildings, filling the cavities, concealing
the tracery and preventing one guessing at their age.
Thanks to whitewash, a wall built a century ago cannot
be distinguished from one finished yesterday. Cordova,
of yore the wonder of Arab civilisation, is now only
a mass of little white houses divided into blocks by
narrow lanes which would not give passage to two
mules abreast ; above rise a few Indian fig-trees, with
metallic-looking foliage, and feathery palms.

Life seems to have abandoned this great body, so
animated in the time of the Moors. It is now but
a whitened and glistening skeleton. Cordova, however,
has preserved its mosque, a unique monument, entirely
novel, even to travellers who have already had an
opportunity of admiring the marvels of Arab architecture
at Granada or Seville.

In spite of its Moorish appearance, Cordova is a
good Christian city, and is placed under the special
protection of the Archangel Raphael. From the bal-

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conv of our parador we saw the curious monument
in honour of this divine patron. The archangel at
the top of his column, sword in hand, wings outspread,
glistering in gold, seems to be eternally watching over
the city intrusted to his keeping. The column, of
gray granite with a Corinthian capital in gilded bronze,
rests on a small tower or lantern in rose granite, the
lower portion of which is formed of rock-work, upon
which are grouped a horse, a palm tree, a lion, and
a most fantastic marine monster. Four allegorical
statues complete the ornamentation. In the base is
enclosed the coffin of Bishop Pascal, who was famous
for his piety and his devotion to the holy archangel.
The following inscription is cut on a scroll: "I swear
to you by Jesus Christ that I am the Angel Raphael,
to whom God has given this post for the guarding
of this city."

You may ask, how it is known that the Archangel
Raphael happened to be the patron of the old city of
Abd-er-Rhaman and not some one else. You will
find the answer in a ballad, printed by permission at
Cordova at Don Raphael Garcia Rodriguez', in Liberty
Street. This precious document has at its head a
woodcut representing the archangel with outspread

CORDOVA

wings, a halo around his head, his travelling-stick and
his fish in his hand, majestically placed between two
superb pots of hyacinths and peonies, with an inscrip-
tion which reads thus : " Truthful Account and
curious Legend of his Lordship Saint Raphael, Arch-
angel, Advocate of the Pest, and Guardian of the City
of Cordova," The document goes on to state how
the blessed archangel appeared to Don Andreas Roelas,
a gentleman and priest of Cordova, and addressed
to him in his room a speech of which the first
sentence is that which has been engraved upon the
column. The speech, which the legends have pre-
served, lasted for more than an hour and a half, the
priest and archangel being seated opposite each other,
each on a chair. The apparition took place May 7
in the year of grace 1578, and it is in memory of it
that this monument has been erected.

The esplanade, surrounded by an iron-work fence,
stretches around the monument, and enables one to
observe it from every side. Statues thus placed gain
elegance and beauty which greatly please me and
which wonderfully conceal the bareness of a terrace or
a public square, or of too large a court.

The exterior of the cathedral had not attracted us

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

greatly, and we feared to be bitterly disappointed.

Victor Hugo's lines, —

"... Cordova, besides its old houses,
Has its mosque, in which the eye roams amid marvels,"

seemed to us in advance too flattering ; but we were
soon convinced that they were entirely justified. It
was the Caliph Abd-er-Rhaman who first laid the
foundation of the Cordova mosque towards the end of
the eighth century. The work proceeded with such
speed that the building was completed at the beginning
of the ninth century. Twenty-one years were suffi-
cient to erect that gigantic building. When we reflect
that a thousand years ago a work so admirable and of
such colossal proportions was carried out in so short a
time and by a people who have since fallen into the
deepest state of barbarism, one is amazed and refuses to
believe in the so-called doctrine of progress which is
current to-day ; one is even tempted to adopt the con-
trary opinion when visiting countries formerly occu-
pied by civilisations which have disappeared. For my
part, I have always greatly regretted that the Moors
did not remain masters of Spain, which has certainly
incurred loss only through their expulsion. Under
their rule, if we are to believe the popular exaggera-

342

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tions so seriously collected by historians, Cordova had
two hundred and fifty thousand houses, eighty thousand
palaces, and nine hundred baths, while twelve thousand
villages formed its suburbs ; now it has not even forty
thousand inhabitants and appears almost deserted.

Abd-er-Rhaman wished to make the Mosque of
Cordova the object of pilgrimages, the chief temple of
Islam next to that in which rests the body of the
Prophet. I have not yet seen the Kasbah at Mecca,
but I question whether it equals in splendour and
extent the Spanish mosque. In the latter was pre-
served at one time one of the original copies of the
Koran, and a still more precious relic, — a bone of the
arm of Mahomet. The common people even now
claim that the Sultan of Constantinople still pays trib-
ute to the King of Spain in order that mass may not
be said in that portion specially consecrated to the
Prophet. This chapel is ironically called by devotees
the Zancarron^ a term of contempt which means "The
bare bone."

The mosque of Cordova has seven gates, which have
nothing monumental about them ; for the very prin-
ciple of the building is opposed to it and does not allow
of the majestic portal imperiously required by the reg-

343

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ular plan of the Gothic cathedrals. Nothing, there-
fore, on the exterior prepares one for the wondrous
spectacle of the interior. We shall pass through the
Patio de los Naranjos^ a vast and splendid court planted
with huge orange-trees, contemporaries of the Moorish
kings, surrounded by long galleries with marble-flagged
arcades, on one of the sides of which rises a spire in
mediocre taste, an unskilful imitation of the Giralda,
as we later ascertained in Seville. Under the pave-
ment of this great court there exists, it is said, a vast
cistern. In the time of the Ommiyads one passed
from the Patio de los Naranjos straight into the
mosque itself, for the hideous wall which cuts off the
view on this side was built later.

The best idea that we can give of that strange build-
ing is to say that it resembles a huge esplanade closed
in and surrounded by groves of pillars. This espla-
nade is four hundred and twenty feet wide and four
hundred and forty feet long ; the columns number
eight hundred and sixtv. There is but half of the
original mosque left, it is said.

The impression made on one on entering this
ancient sanctuary of Islam is indefinable and has
no resemblance to the emotions usually produced by

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CORDOVA

architecture. One seems to walk through a ceiled
forest rather than through a building. Whichever way
one turns, the glance wanders down lines of pillars
which cross and stretch as far as the eye can reach like
a marble vegetation which has spontaneously sprung
from the soil. The mysterious twilight which reigns
in this stone forest adds to the illusion. There are
nineteen naves in the direction of the breadth, thirty-
six in the other, but the opening of the cross arcades
is narrower. Each nave is formed of two ranks of
superimposed arches, some of which cross and interlace
like ribbons, producing the quaintest effects. The
pillars, which are cut out of single blocks of stone, are
not more than ten to twelve feet in height to their cap-
ital, which is in a strong and delicate Arab-Corinthian
style recalling the African palm rather than the Greek
acanthus. The pillars are of precious marbles, por-
phyry, jasper, green and violet breccia and other pre-
cious materials ; there are even some antique pillars
among them, which come, it is said, from the ruins of
a former temple of Janus. So the worship of three
different religions has been celebrated on this site. Of
these three religions, one has disappeared forever in the
abyss of the past with the civilisation which it repre-

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

sented ; the other has been driven out of Europe,
where it has now but a foothold, to the very confines
of Oriental barbarism ; the third, after having reached
its apogee, now mined by the spirit of investigation,
is growing weaker day by day even in those countries
where it formerly reigned as absolute sovereign ; and
perhaps Abd-er-Rhaman's old mosque may last long
enough to see a fourth creed installed under its arches,
celebrating with another ritual and with other hymns
the new god, — or rather the new prophet, for God
never changes.

In the days of the Caliphs, eight hundred silver
lamps filled with aromatic oil lighted up these long
naves, made the porphyry and polished jasper of the
columns flash again, studded with spangles of light
the gilded stars of the ceiling, and showed through the
shadows the crystal mosaics and the verses of the
Koran interlaced in arabesques and flowers. Among
these lamps were the bells of Santiago de Com-
postello, taken by the Moors. Overset and sus-
pended from the ceiling by silver chains, they illumined
the temple of Allah and his prophet, much surprised
at having turned into Moslem lamps after having been
Catholic bells. In those days the glance could roam

346

CORDOVA

freely along the vast colonnades and discover from one
end of the temple the orange trees in bloom and
the upspringing fountains of the court in a flood
of light which was all the more dazzling by contrast
with the twilight of the interior. Unfortunately,
this magnificent prospect is now obstructed by the
Catholic church, a huge building, set heavily in the
very centre of the Arab mosque. Retables, chapels,
and sacristies encumber and destroy the general sym-
metry. This parasitic church, a monstrous stone
mushroom, an architectural wart which has grown
on the back of the Arab building, was constructed
from the designs of Hernan Ruiz, and is not without
merit in itself; anywhere else it would be admired ;
but it is forever to be regretted that it should have
been placed where it stands. It was built, in spite
of the resistance of the municipal authorities, by the
chapter, in consequence of a decree obtained surrep-
titiously from the Emperor Charles V, who had not
seen the mosque. Visiting it a few years later, he
remarked : " If I had known the facts, I should
never have allowed the old work to be touched.
You have put what may be seen anywhere in place
of what is to be seen nowhere else." This well

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deserved reproach shamed the chapter, but the evil
was done.

In the choir there is a vast piece of carved wood-
work in massive mahogany, which represents subjects
drawn from the Old Testament, and which is the
work of Pedro Cornejo, who spent ten years of his
life in this vast labour, as may be seen on the tomb
of the poor artist, who lies asleep a short distance
from his masterpiece. Speaking of tombs, we noticed
a curious one set into the wall, in shape like a trunk
and closed with three padlocks.

Until the middle of the eighteenth century the old
cedar and larch ceiling of Abd-er-Rahman had been
preserved, with its sunken panels, its lozenges and Ori-
ental beauty; it has been replaced by vaults and semi-
cupolas in mediocre taste. The old pavement has
been replaced by a tiled pavement, which has raised
the level of the floor and conceals the base of the
pillars, and thus makes more striking the general defect
of the building, which is too low for its size.

All these profanations do not prevent the Mosque
of Cordova from being even now one of the most
marvellous buildings in the world, and as if to make
us feel more bitterly the mutilation which the rest has

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CORDOVA

undergone, a portion, called the Mirahb^ has been pre-
served as if by a miracle with scrupulous integrity.

The carved and wooden ceiling, with its media
naranja studded with stars, its traceried windows with
their gratings that give passage to a soft light, the
gallery with its trefoil, the coloured-glass mosaics, the
lines of the Koran in gilded, crystal letters which
wind in and out through the most complicated and
graceful ornaments and arabesques, — form a work of
fairy richness, beauty, and elegance, the like of which
is to be found only in the " Thousand and One
Nights," and which need not envy their art. Never
were lines more judiciously chosen, colours better
combined. Even the Gothic artists, in their most
delicate fancy, in their most precious goldsmith-work
exhibit something sickly, emaciated, and thin which
recalls the barbarism and the infancy of art. On the
contrary, the architecture of the Mirahb exhibits a
civilisation which has attained to its culminating point ;
beyond there can only be decadence ; nothing is lack-
ing of proportion, harmony, richness, and grace.

From this chapel one enters a small and highly
ornamented sanctuary, the ceiling of which is com-
posed of a single block of marble cut into a shell

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

shape and carved with infinite delicacy. This was
probably the holy of holies, the dread and sacred
place where the presence of God was more manifest
than elsewhere. Another chapel, the Chapel of the
Moorish Kings, where the Caliphs said their prayers
apart from the multitude of believers, also presents
some interesting and delightful details, but it has not
been as fortunate as the Mirahb, and its colours have
vanished under an ignoble layer of whitewash.

The sacristies overflow with treasures : dazzling
monstrances set with precious stones, silver reliquaries
of enormous weight and wondrous work, as large as
small cathedrals, candelabra, golden crucifixes, gold-
embroidered copes, — of Asiatic and more than regal
luxury.

As we were about to leave, the beadle who guided
us led us mysteriously to an obscure corner and
exhibited to us as the greatest curiosity the crucifix
which is said to have been carved with his finger-
nails by a Christian prisoner upon a porphyry column
at the foot of which he was chained. By way of
proving the truth of his story, he showed us the
statue of the poor captive standing a little way ofi\
Without being more of an unbeliever than is proper

CORDOVA

in matters of legend, I could not help thinking that
in those days either men had very hard finger nails
or porphyry was very soft. Nor is this the only
crucifix ; there is a second one upon another column
but much less well done. The beadle also showed
us a huge ivory tusk suspended from the ceiling of a
cupola by iron chains, like the hunting-horn of some
Nimrod of a vanished world. The tusk belonged, it
is said, to one of the elephants employed in hauling
the material during the building of the mosque.

On leaving the cathedral, we stopped for a few
moments before a pretty Gothic portal which forms
the facade of the Foundling Hospital. Anywhere
else it would be admired, but the imposing neigh-
bourhood in which it is placed eclipses it.

Having visited the cathedral, there was nothing to
occupy us in Cordova, a stay in which was not very
pleasant. The only amusement of a stranger is to
bathe in the Guadalquivir or to be shaved in one
of the numerous barber-shops around the mosque, —
an operation performed most dexterously, with the
help of a huge razor, bv a small individual perched
upon the back of the great oaken armchair in which
you are seated.

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The heat was unbearable, for it was increased by
fire. The harvest was just over, and it is the custom
in Andalusia to burn the stubble when the sheaves
have been brought in, so that the ashes may fertilise
the ground. The country was blazing for ten or
twelve miles around, and the wind passing over this
ocean of flame brought us puffs of air as hot as
that which escapes from a furnace. We were like
scorpions whom children surround with a circle of
shavings to which they set fire, and which are obliged
to make a desperate sortie or to commit suicide by
stinging themselves. We chose the former method.

The galley by which we had come took us back by
the same road to Ecija, where we asked for a calesa
to go to Seville. The driver, having seen the two
of us together, thought that we were too tall, stout,
and heavy to take, and raised a series of objections :
our trunks, he said, were so very heavy that it would
take four men to raise them, and would break down
his carriage. We at once removed this objection
by picking up and putting the slandered trunks up-
on the back of the calesa. The rascal, having no
further objections to offer, at last made up his mind
to start.

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CORDOVA

Flat or slightly undulating ground planted with olive
trees, the gray colour of which is made paler by the
dusty, sandy steeps on which shows from time to time
blackish verdure, — these were the only things we saw
for many a mile.

At Luisiana all the inhabitants were stretched out
at their doors, snoring in the starlight. Our carriage
forced the lines of sleepers to rise and press against
the walls, grumbling and lavishing on us all the
riches of the Andalusian vocabulary. We stopped
at an ill-looking posada, with more guns and muskets
than cooking-utensils. Dogs of monstrous size fol-
lowed every movement of ours with attention, and
seemed to wait but a sign to tear us to pieces. The
quiet voracity with which we despatched our tomato
omelet seemed to surprise our hostess extremely ;
she appeared to consider the repast superfluous and
to regret the food which would not profit us. How-
ever, in spite of the sinister appearance of the place
we did not have our throats cut, and the people
were clement enough to allow us to continue on
our way.

The ground became more and more sandy, and the
wheels sank up to the axles in the soft soil. Then we

^3 353

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

understood why our driver was so worried by our
weight. To relieve the horse we got down, and about
midnight, after having travelled along a road which
ascended the steep slopes of a mountain, we reached
Carmona, where we were to sleep. Lime-kilns cast
over the rocky slope long, reddish reflections which
produced wonderfully strong, picturesque effects of
light and shade.

Beyond Carmona the cacti and aloes which had for-
saken us reappeared fiercer and more bristling than
ever. The landscape was less bare, less red, and more
diversified; the heat was also somewhat less intense.
We soon reached Alcala de los Panaderos, famous for
its excellent bread, as its name indicates, and its
fiov!/Ios-{\ghts (young bulls), to which the aficionados
of Seville repair during the intermission of bull-fights
in that city. The town is admirably situated at the
bottom of a small valley, through which meanders a
river. It is sheltered by a hill on which rise the ruins
of an old Moorish palace. We were near Seville, and
before long the Giralda showed against the sky, first its
traceried lantern, and then its square tower. A few
hours later we were passing under the Carmona Gate,
the arch of which framed in a background of dusty

354

CORDOVA

light, in which moved through a mist of golden vapour
galleys, mules, asses, and ox-waggons, some going and
some coming. The massive arches of a superb aque-
duct of Roman aspect showed on the left of the road ;
on the other side rows of houses, set closer and closer
together. We were in Seville.

355

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

SEVILLE

A SPANISH proverb very often quoted says that
he who has not seen Seville has not seen a mar-
vel. We humbly confess that this proverb would ap-
pear to us more accurate if it applied to Toledo or
Granada than to Seville, in which we found nothing
particularly marvellous save the cathedral.

The city is situated on the banks of the Guadal-
quivir, in a broad plain whence it derives its name of
Hispalis, which means in Carthaginian " flat ground,"
if Arias Montano and Samuel Bochard are to be be-
lieved. It is a large, wide-spreading city, quite
modern, bright, gay, animated, and which no doubt
must strike Spaniards as charming. No greater con-
trast to Cordova could be found. Cordova is, as
already said, an ossuary of houses, a catacomb under
the open sky, over which loneliness scatters its whitish
dust. The stray inhabitants who show at the corners
of the streets look like ghosts that have mistaken the
time. Seville, on the contrary, has all the excitement

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SEVILLE

and bustle of life ; a rumour hovers over it at every
moment of the day , it scarcely takes time to enjoy
its siesta; it is not troubled by yesterday, still less by
to-morrow, — it is wholly given up to the present.
Memory and hope constitute the happiness of unfortu-
nate places: but Seville is not unfortunate; it enjoys
itself, whilst Cordova, its sister, seems in silence and
solitude to dream of Abd-er-Rahman and of the Great
Captain, of all its vanished splendour — lights gleaming
in the night of the past, of which it has naught left but
the ashes.

To the great disappointment of travellers and anti-
quarians, whitewash reigns supreme in Seville. Houses
are whitewashed three or four times a year, which
makes them look clean and well kept, but which pre-
vents one tracing the remains of Arab and Gothic
sculptures which formerly adorned them. Nothing is
more monotonous than the network of streets which
exhibit but two shades, the indigo blue of the heavens
and the chalk white of the walls, upon which fall the
blue shadows of the neighbouring buildings ; for in
these hot countries the shadows are blue instead of
being gray, so that objects seem to be lighted on the
one side by moonlight and on the other by sunlight.

357

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

However, the lack of dark shades results in much live-
liness and gaiety. Gates closed by gratings allow you
to catch glimpses of courts adorned with columns,
mosaic pavements, fountains, pots of ilowers, shrubs,
and paintings. As for the exterior architecture, it is in
no wise remarkable. The buildings are rarely more
than two stories high, and scarcely a dozen facades
artistically interesting are to be found. The pavement
is composed of small pebbles as in all Spanish towns,
but by way of pavement there is laid a band of fairly
wide, flat stones on which the crowd walks in Indian
file. Ladies are always given the right of way, with
that exquisite politeness which is natural in Spain, even
to the lowest class.

The Seville women justify their reputation for
beauty. They are almost all alike, as is the case with
pure races of characteristic type. They have large
eyes furnished with long, brown lashes which have an
effect of black and white unknown in France. When
a woman or maid passes near you, she lowers her eye-
lids, then suddenly opens them and flashes straight at
you a glance so dazzling that you cannot sustain it,
gives one turn to her eyes and again lowers her eye-
lashes. We have no expression to describe this fashion

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SEVILLE

of using the "eyes ; ojear is lacking in our vocabulary.
These sudden and bright glances, which almost em-
barrass strangers, have no particular meaning and are
cast indifferently upon anything. A young Andalusian
will look with that passionate glance at a passing cart,
a dog trying to catch its tail, children playing at bull-
fighting. The eyes of Northern people are dull and
dead in comparison ; the sun has never left these re-
flections in them. Teeth, the incisors of which are
very sharp and which are as bright as those of a young
Newfoundland dog, give to the smile of the women of
Seville a touch of Arab and of strangeness which is
very striking. The brow is high, rounded, and polished,
the nose delicate and somewhat aquiline, the lips richly
coloured. Unfortunately, the chin sometimes ends with
too sharp a curve the oval outline so admirably begun.
The only imperfection which the most fastidious artist
could find in the Seville ladies is that their shoulders
and arms are somewhat thin ; the joints, the small
hands and feet leave nothing to be desired. Without
any poetic exaggeration, one would easily find among
the Seville women feet which a child could hold in its
hand. The Andalusians are very proud of this, and
are very careful of the kind of shoes they wear. They

359

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

are usually of satin, and barely cover the toes. Un-
fortunately, Seville ladies are Spanish and remain Span-
ish only as far as their feet and their heads are concerned,
as far as the shoe and mantilla go. Coloured dresses cut
in French fashion begin to prevail. Men are dressed
up like tailor's patterns. Sometimes, however, they
wear short, white-duck jackets and white trousers with
a red sash and an Andalusian hat ; but that is rare and
the costume itself is not very picturesque.

It is on the Alameda del Duque, where one takes
the air between the acts at the play — for the theatre is
close by — and especially at the Paseo de Cristina,
that it is delightful to see, between seven and eight,
parade and coquette the pretty Sevillians in small
groups of three or four accompanied by their actual
or prospective gallants. There is something light and
springing about their gait, so that they prance rather
than walk. The swiftness with which they open and
close their fans, the brilliancy of their glance, the as-
surance of their gait, the undulating suppleness of their
figure, give them a most distinctive air. There may
be more perfectly and more regularly beautiful women
in England, France, or Italy, but certainly there are
none prettier or more piquant. These Sevillians pos-

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SEVILLE

sess in a high degree what the Spaniards call sal. It is
difficult to give an idea of it in conversation : it is
composed of nonchalance and vivacity, of quick replies
and childish ways, of a gracefulness as piquant as it is
savoury, which need not accompany beauty, but which
is often preferred to it. So in Spain they say to a
woman, " How salt (^salada) you are ! " and no compli-
ment is greater than that.

The Paseo de Cristina is a superb promenade upon
the banks of the Guadalquivir, with a Salon paved with
large slabs, surrounded by a white-marble bench with an
iron back, shaded by Oriental plane-trees, and with
a maze, a Chinese pavilion, and all sorts of Northern
trees, ash, cvpress, poplar, willow, which excite the
admiration of the Andalusians, just as aloes and palms
would excite that of Parisians.

At the approaches to the Cristina there are bits of
cord steeped in sulphur and rolled around posts, which
offer a light always ready for smokers, so that one is
freed from the nuisance of the boys who carry coals
and pursue you, shouting out, " Fuego ! " which makes
the Prado at Madrid so unbearable.

Pleasant as is this promenade, nevertheless I prefer
the river bank itself, which offers an ever-varied and

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

animated spectacle. In the centre of the river where
the water is deepest are anchored the trading barks and
schooners with their airy rigging, the lines of which
show so clearly against the light background of the sky.
The swift boats cross and recross the river in every
direction, sometimes bearing a company of young men
and young women who go down stream playing on the
guitar and singing couplets, which are scattered around
by the breeze, and which the people on shore applaud.
The Torre del Oro, a sort of octagonal tower with three
stories, crenellated after the Moorish fashion, its base
bathed by the Guadalquivir near the landing-place, and
which springs up into the blue sky from amidst a
forest of masts and rigging, bounds admirably the pros-
pect on this side. This tower, which is, so the learned
insist, of Roman construction, was formerly connected
with the Alcazar by walls which have been taken down
for the construction of the Paseo de Cristina, and it
held at the time of the Moors one of the chains which
barred the river, the other one of which was fastened
opposite to counterforts of masonry. Its name comes,
it is said, from the fact that the gold brought from
America by galleons was stored in it.

Every evening we used to go to walk there and

362

SEVILLE

watch the ■Sun setting behind the Triana suburb,
situated on the other side of the river. A noble palm-
tree spread its disc of leaves as if to salute the set-
ting sun. I have always greatly loved palm trees,
and I can never see one without being carried off
into a poetic and patriarchal world, into the midst
of foreign scenes of the East, of the splendours of
the Bible.

A bridge of boats connects the two banks and
unites the suburbs to the city. You have to pass
over it to visit, near Santiponce, the remains of Italica,
the native place of Silius Italicus, the poet, and of
the emperors Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius.
There still exists a ruined amphitheatre, the outline
of which is quite plain. The dens in which the wild
beasts were kept, and the dressing-rooms of the gladi-
ators are easily recognised, as well as the corridors
and the seats. It is built of cement mixed with
stones. The stone revetments have probablv been
carried off for more modern buildings, for Italica
has long served as a quarrv for Seville. A few
rooms have been cleared out and serve as a shelter
during the heat of the dav for troops of blue porkers,
which bolt with a grunt between the visitors' legs,

363

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

and constitute to-day the only population of the old
Roman city. The most complete and interesting
remains of all that vanished splendour is a mosaic
of great size which has been surrounded with walls,
and which represents the Muses and Nereids. When
water has been poured over it to revive the colours,
they show very brilliantly, although cupidity has led
to some of the most precious portions being carried
away. There have also been found in the debris
some fragments of statues in fairly good style, and
there is no doubt that intelligent search would result
in important discoveries. Italica lies about four or
five miles from Seville, and it is an excursion which
one can easily make in the course of an afternoon
by taking a carriage, unless one is a fanatical archaeolo-
gist and insists on examining, one after another, all the
old stones suspected of bearing inscriptions.

The Trajan Gate is also claimed to be Roman
and is named after the emperor. It is of monumental
aspect, of the Doric order, with columns in pairs
adorned with the royal arms and surmounted by pyra-
mids. It has its own alcalde, and is used as a prison
for knights. The gates del Carbon and del Aciete
are well worth looking at. On the Xeres Gate is

364

SEVILLE

the following inscription : " Hercules built me ; Julius
Cresar encircled me with walls and lofty towers ; the
Saintly King won me with Garci Perez de Vargas."

Seville is surrounded by a girdle of crenellated walls,
flanked at intervals by great towers, several of which
have fallen into ruins, and moats now wholly filled
up. The walls, which would be useless against
modern artillery, have, thanks to their dentelated
Arab crenellations, quite a picturesque effect. Julius
Cicsar is said to have built them, as he is said to have
built every wall and camp that exists.

The Cristina, the Guadalquivir, the Alameda del
Duque, Italica, and the Moorish Alcazar are no doubt
very interesting things, but the real marvel of Seville
is its cathedral, which is indeed a surprising building,
even after the cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo, and
the Cordova Mosque. The chapter which ordered
it to be built, summed up its intention in these words :
" Let us erect a monument which shall lead posterity
to think that we were mad." That was a broad and
well drawn up programme. So, having full powers,
the artists performed prodigies, and the canons, in
order to hasten the completion of the building, gave up
their whole income, keeping only what was absolute]"

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

necessary to sustain life. O thrice holy canons, may
you sleep gently under your slabs in the shadow of
your beloved cathedral, while your souls are enjoying
themselves in paradise in stalls probably less beautifully
carved than those which stand in your choir.

The mightiest and most amazing Hindoo pagodas
do not approach the Seville Cathedral. It is a hollow
mountain, a valley overset. Notre-Dame in Paris
could stand in the centre of the nave, which is of
dizzy height ; the pillars, as large as towers, though
they seem so slender that they make you shudder,
spring from the ground or hang from the ceiling like
the stalactites of a giant grotto. The four lateral
naves, although less lofty, could hold churches with
their steeples. The retable and the high altar, with
its staircases, its superimposed stories, its lines of
statues rising one above another, are in themselves a
vast edifice, ascending almost as high as the vaulting.
The Paschal candle, which is as tall as a vessel's
mast, weighs two hundred and fifty pounds ; the
bronze candlestick which supports it is like the
column of the Place Vendome. It is copied from
the candlestick of the Temple at Jerusalem as it is
represented on the bassi-relievi of the Arch of Titus.

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SEVI LLE

Everything is on the same grand scale. Every year
there are consumed in the cathedral twenty thousand
pounds of wax and an equal quantity of oil ; the
sacramental wine amounts to the terrifying quantity
of eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifty pints.
It is true that every day there are five hundred masses
said at eighty altars. The catafalque which is used
during Holy Week, and which is called " The Monu-
ment," is nearly one hundred feet high. The organs,
of gigantic size, look like the basalt columns of Fin-
gal's Cave, and yet the storms and thunders which
escape from their pipes, which are the size of siege
guns, sound like melodious murmurs, warblings of
birds, and song of seraphs under those colossal arches.
There are eighty-three painted windows after cartoons
by Michael Angelo, Raphael, Diirer, Peregrino, Teo-
baldi and Lucas Cambiaso ; the oldest and finest are
the work of Arnold of Flanders, a famous painter
on glass-, the latest, which bear the date of 1819,
show how greatly the art has degenerated since the
glories of the sixteenth century, the climacteric epoch
of the world, when the plant called Man bore its finest
flowers and its most savoury fruits. The choir, in the
Gothic style, is ornamented with turrets, spires, tra-

367

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

ceried niches, figures, and foliage, a vast and minute
work which appals the imagination and is unintelligible
nowadays. One remains thunderstruck in the pres-
ence of such work and wonders uneasily whether
vitality is diminishing every century with the aging
of the world. This prodigy of talent, patience, and
genius at least bears its author's name, and admiration
knows upon what to settle. On one of the panels on
the gospel side is the inscription : " Nufro Sanchez,
sculptor, whom God have in His holy keeping, made
this choir in 1475."

To attempt to describe the riches of the cathedral
one after another would be madness ; it would take
a year to visit it thoroughly, and then one would not
have seen everything ; whole volumes would not be
sufficient for the choir. Stone, wood, and silver sculp-
tures by Juan de Arfe, Juan Millan, Montanes, de
Roldan ; paintings by Murillo, Zurbaran, Campana, de
Roelas, Luis de Villegas, Herrera the elder and Her-
rera the younger, Juan Valdes, and Goya litter the
chapels, sacristies, and chapter-houses. You feel
crushed by the splendour, drunk with masterpieces ;
you know not which way to look; the desire and
yet the impossibility of seeing everything gives you

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SEVILLE

a feverish vertigo ; you wish not to forget anything,
and every moment a name escapes you, a lineament
becomes dimmed, one painting takes the place of an-
other. You appeal desperately to your memory, you
order your eyes not to waste a glance ; the least rest,
the time given to meals and to sleep, seem thefts, for
imperious necessity drags you on. You have to go,
— the fire is already lighted under the boiler of the
steamer, the water hisses and boils, the funnels belch
out their black smoke, —to-morrow you will leave all
these marvels, never again, no doubt, to see them.

As I cannot speak of everything, I shall be satisfied
with mentioning the "Saint Anthony of Padua " by
Murillo, which adorns the Baptistery chapel. Never
has the power of painting been carried farther. The
saint in ecstasy is kneeling in the centre of his cell,
the main details of which are rendered with that
vigorous realism characteristic of the Spanish manner;
through the half-open door is seen one of the long,
white, arcaded cloisters so favourable to meditation.
The upper portion of the painting, full of a pale,
transparent, vaporous light, holds groups of ideally
beautiful angels. Drawn by the force of praver, the
Child Jesus descends from cloud to cloud, and is about

24 369

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

to rest on the arms of the holy personage, whose head,
bathed in radiant effluvia, is thrown back in a spasm
of celestial delight. We place this divine paint-
ing above that of "Saint Elizabeth of Hungary,"
which is to be seen in the Madrid Academy, above
the " Moses," above all the Virgins and Children of
the master, however beautiful and exquisite they may
be. He who has not seen the " Saint Anthony of
Padua " does not know the highest work of the Seville
painter. It is like those who fancy they know Rubens
and have never seen the Antwerp " Magdalen."

All styles of architecture are found in the cathedral
of Seville, the severe Gothic, the Renaissance, the
style called by the Spaniards plateresque, or silver-
work, and which is marked by an incredible wealth of
ornaments and arabesques, the rococo, the Greek, the
Roman, — none are lacking, for every age has built a
chapel or a retable in the taste which was its own, and
the building is not yet entirely finished. Several of
the statues which stand in the niches of the portals,
representing patriarchs, apostles, saints, and archangels,
are in terra cotta merely, and placed there provision-
ally. In the direction of the Court de los Naranjos,
on the top of the unfinished portal, rises the iron crane.

SEVILLE

a symbol that the building is not yet finished and will
be continued later. A similar crane stands also on top
of Beauvais Cathedral ; but when will the day come
that the weight of a stone slowly hauled up through
the air by workmen, will make its pulleys, rusted for
centuries past, creak again. Never, perhaps ; for the
upward flow of enthusiasm has stopped, and the sap
which caused this bloom of cathedrals to emerge from
the soil no longer rises through the trunk and the
branches. Profound faith had written the first stro-
phes of all these poems in stone and granite ; reason,
which doubts, has not dared to finish them. The
architects of the Middle Ages were religious Titans
who heaped Pelion upon Ossa, not to overthrow the
God of Thunders, but to admire from a nearer point
the gentle face of the Virgin Mother smiling upon the
Child Jesus. In our days, when everything is sacri-
ficed to coarse and stupid comfort, one no longer
understands these sublime upspringings of the soul
towards the Infinite, which expressed themselves in
steeples, in spires, in finials, in arches, which upraised
to heaven their arms of stone joined over the heads of
the prostrate people like giant hands folded in supplica-
tion. All these treasures, buried without bringing in

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

anything, make economists shrug their shoulders with
pity ; even the people begin to calculate the worth of
the gold of the cup ; the people who of yore dared not
raise their eyes to the white sun of the Host, now
reflect that bits of crystal might perfectly well replace
the diamonds and gems on the monstrance. The
churches are scarce frequented save by travellers, beg-
gars, and hideous old women. Spain is no longer
Catholic.

The Giralda, which serves as a campanile to the
cathedral and rises high above all the spires of the city,
is an old Moorish tower built by an Arab architect
named Djabir or Gever, the inventor of algebra, to
which he gave his name. It is very effective and very
original. The rose-coloured brick and the white stone
of which it is built impart to it an air of brightness and
youth which contrasts with the date of the building,
which goes back to the year looo (the Giralda was, as
a matter of fact, built from 1 184 to 1 196), a very respect-
able age, at which a tower may indeed permit itself to
be ruined and no longer fresh. The Giralda, as it
stands to-day, is three hundred and fifty feet in height
and fifty feet broad on each face. The wall is smooth
up to a certain height, where begin stories of Moorish

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SEVILLE

windows with "balconies, trefoils, and slender columns
of white marble framed in great panels of lozenge-
shaped bricks. The tower formerly ended in a roof
of varnished tiles of different colours, surmounted
by a bar of iron adorned with four balls of gilt
metal of prodigious size. This upper portion was
destroyed in 1568 by the architect Francisco Ruiz,
who sent one hundred feet higher into the pure light
of heaven the tower of the Moor Gever, so that its
bronze statue might look over the Sierras and talk
familiarly with the angels who pass by. To build a
steeple on top of a tower was to conform in every
point with the intentions of the admirable chapter
whom we have mentioned as willing to pass for mad
in the eyes of posterity. The work of Francisco Ruiz
consists of three stories, the first of which is pierced by
windows in the embrasures of which are hung the
bells ; the second, surrounded by a traceried balustrade,
bears on each face of the cornice the words, " Turr'is
fortissirna nomen Domini " ; the third is a sort of cupola
or lantern on which turns a giant figure of Faith in
gilded bronze, holding a palm in one hand, a standard
in the other, which serves as a vane and explains the
name Giralda given to the tower. The statue is by

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

Baitolome Morel. It is seen from a very long dis-
tance, and when it shines through the blue in the
rays of the sun, it really looks like a seraph floating
in the air.

The Giralda is ascended by a series of slopes with-
out steps, so easy and so gentle that two men on
horseback could easily ride abreast to the summit,
whence one enjoys a wondrous panorama. Seville
lies at one's feet, sparkling white, with its steeples
and towers which in vain try to rise as high as the
rose-brick girdle of the Giralda. Farther off stretches
the plain, through which gleams the Guadalquivir;
Santiponce, Algaba, and other villages are visible ;
in the farthest distance shows the chain of the Sierra
Morena with its outline clear cut in spite of the dis-
tance, so great is the transparency of the atmosphere
in this wonderful country. On the other side rise
the Sierras de Gibalbin, Zara, and Moron, coloured
with the richest tints of lapis lazuli and amethyst.
A marvellous prospect, filled with light, flooded with
sunshine, and of dazzling splendour.

A great number of shafts of pillars cut down to
the size of stone posts and connected by chains —
save a few spaces left free for trafiic — surround the

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SEVILLE

cathedral. Some of these columns are antique, and
come either from the ruins of Italica or the remains
of the old mosque on the site of which the present
church was built, and of which nothing is left but
the Giralda, a few trees, and one or two arches, one
of which serves as a gateway to the Court of Orange
Trees (de los Naranjos).

The Lonja (Exchange), a great square building,
perfectly regular, built by the heavy, dull Herrera,
the architect of boredom, — to whom we are in-
debted for the Escorial, the gloomiest building in the
world, — isolated on all sides and showing four identi-
cal facades, is situated between the cathedral and the
Alcazar. There are preserved the American archives,
the letters of Christopher Columbus, Pizarro, and
Fernando Cortez.

The Alcazar, or old palace of the Moorish kings,
though ver}' beautiful and deserving of its reputation,
has nothing striking when one has already seen the
Alhambra. It has the same slender columns of white
marble with gilded and painted capitals, the horseshoe
arches, the panels filled with arabesques interlaced
with verses of the Koran, doors of cedar and larch,
cupolas hung with stalactites, fountains embroidered

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with carvings of which no description can express
the infinite detail and minute delicacy. The Hall of
the Ambassadors, whose magnificent doors remain in
their entirety, is perhaps finer and richer than that
at Granada. Unfortunately, the idea came to some
one to turn to account the spaces between the slender
pillars which bear up the ceiling to hang up a series
of portraits of the kings of Spain from the most
distant days to the present. Nothing can be more
ridiculous.

The so-called baths of Maria Padilla, the morganatic
wife of King Don Pedro the Cruel, who lived in the
Alcazar, are still as they were in the time of the
Arabs. The Hall of Vapour Baths has not under-
gone the slightest alteration. Charles V has left
in the Alcazar, as he did in the Alhambra at Gra-
nada, much too numerous traces of his passage.
The Alcazar contains gardens laid out in the old
French taste.

To be done with architecture, let us pay a visit
to the famous Hospital de la Caridad, founded by
the famous Juan de Mafiara, who is not a fabulous
personage, as might be supposed. The Caridad con-
tains most beautiful Murillos : " Moses striking the

376

SEVILLE

Rock," the "-Miracle of the Loaves," which are vast
compositions admirably wrought ; " Saint John the
Divine," carrying a dead man and supported by an
angel, which is a masterpiece of colour and light and
shade. Here is also the painting by Juan Valdcs
known as " The Two Bodies," a strange and terrible
picture by the side of which Young's gloomiest con-
ceptions are joyful pleasantries.

The bull-fight arena was closed, to our great regret,
for dilettanti maintain that the Seville bull-fights are
the most brilliant in Spain. Our hopes being dashed,
there was nothing left but to go to Cadiz by steamer.

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

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CADIZ— GIBRALTAR

THE paddles, aided by the current, carried us
rapidly towards Cadiz. Seville was already
sinking in the distance astern, but by a splendid opti-
cal illusion, as the roofs of the city seemed to sink
in the ground and to mingle with the straight lines
of the distance, the cathedral grew and assumed enor-
mous proportions; then first I grasped its enormous
size. The highest steeples did not rise above the
nave. As for the Giralda, the distance cast over its
rose brickwork tints of amethyst and aventurine.
The statue of Faith sWbne on top of its summit
like a golden bee on top of tall grass. A turn in
the river soon concealed the city from us.

The banks of the Guadalquivir, at least on the way
to the sea, do not have the delightful aspect which
poets and travellers attribute to them. I know not
where they have seen the woods of orange trees
and pomegranates with which they perfume their
romances ; in reality one sees but low, sandy, yellow

CADIZ — G I BR ALTAR

banks, and turbid yellow water, the earthy colour of
which cannot possible be due to rain, which is very
scarce in this country. I had already remarked this
muddiness of the water in the Tagus. It may be due to
the great quantity of dust which the wind carries into
it and to the friable character of the soil the river
traverses. The intense blue of the sky also has some-
thing to do with it, causing the tones of the water,
always less brilliant, to appear somewhat dirty. The
sea alone can rival such a sky in transparency and
blueness. The river became broader and broader, the
banks lower and flatter, and the general appearance
of the landscape recalled closely the Scheldt between
Antwerp and Ostend. This recollection of Flanders
in the heart of Andalusia is the quainter because
of the Moorish name of the Guadalquivir, but the
recollection came so naturally to my mind that the
resemblance must have been very real, for I can
swear that I was not thinking much either of the
Scheldt or of my trip to Flanders some six or seven
years ago. There was very little traffic on the river,
and as much as we could see of the country beyond
the banks appeared uncultivated and deserted. It
is true that we were then in the dog days, a season

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during which Spain is not much else than a great
heap of ashes without vegetation or greenness. The
only living beings were herons and storks, one leg
tucked up, the other half-plunged in the water, wait-
ing for the passage of a fish, in such complete immo-
bility that they might have been mistaken for wooden
decoys stuck on sticks. Boats with lateen sails as-
cended and descended the river with the same wind ;
a phenomenon which I have never thoroughly under-
stood, although it has been explained to me several
times. Several of these vessels carried a third small
sail of triangular shape placed in the vacant space
between the two divergent points of the great sails.
This rig is a very picturesque one.

It was pitch-dark when we reached Cadiz. The
lights of the vessels anchored in the roads of the city,
and the stars in the heavens studded the lapping waves
with millions of gold, silver and fiery sparkles. In the
calmer spaces the reflection of the lights traced, as it
lengthened along the sea, long fiery columns of magical
effect. The huge mass of the ramparts loomed grimly
through the dark shadows.

As you will readily imagine, we rose with the day.
To enter a strange city by night is one of the things

CADIZ — GIB R A LT A R

which most irritates a traveller's curiosity. The next
morning the city appears to you suddenly, in its en-
tirety, just like a stage-setting when the curtain rises.

Neither painters nor writers possess a choice of
colours bright enough and luminous enough to render
the dazzling impression which Cadiz made upon us on
that glorious morning. Two principal tints struck the
glance, blue and white ; the blue was the sky, repeated
in the sea, the white was the city. Nothing more
radiant, more sparkling, of a luminosity more diffused
and more intense at one and the same time, can be
imagined.

The houses in Cadiz are much higher than in the
other Spanish cities. This is due to the configuration
of the ground, the city being built upon a narrow islet
joined to the main land by a slender neck of land, and
also to the desire of the inhabitants to have a view of
the sea. Almost all the terraces have at one corner a
turret or a belvedere, sometimes covered with a small
cupola. These aerial look-outs adorn with innumer-
able irregularities the sky line of the city, producing the
most picturesque effect. Everything is whitewashed,
and the whitened facades are further brightened by long
vermilion lines which separate the houses and mark off

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

the stories. The balconies, which project considerably,
are enclosed in a sort of glass cage adorned with red
curtains and filled with flowers. Some of the cross
streets end in nothingness, and seem to vanish into
heaven. These glimpses of sky are charming in their
unexpectedness. Aside from this gay, living, and lu-
minous aspect, there is nothing remarkable in Cadiz. -<
Its cathedral, a huge sixteenth-century building, al-
though lacking neither nobility nor beauty, is in no
wise remarkable, after the prodigies of Burgos, Toledo,
Cordova, and Seville. It is something like the cathe-
drals of Jaen, of Granada, and Malaga, of classical
architecture with more slender and delicate proportions,
such as the Renaissance artists loved.

Cadiz is enclosed in a narrow girdle of ramparts, and
a second girdle of reefs and rocks protects it from
assaults and storms. On the glacis of the ramparts,
provided at intervals with stone sentry-boxes, one can
walk right around the city, one gate of which alone
opens towards the main land, and one can see in the
offing and in the roads, sweeping in or out in graceful
curves, crossing, tacking, and veering like albatrosses,
boats, feluccas, and fishing-boats, which in the distance
look like the pinion feathers of a dove carried off by a

CADIZ — GIBRALTAR

mad wind. The prospect is most animated, lively, and
charming.

On the breakwater near the Custom-house Gate, the
bustle is unparalleled. The motley crowd, comprising
representatives of every part of the world, constantly
surges around the columns surmounted by statues which
adorn the quay. Every variety of the human race is
to be found there, from the fair-haired, white-skinned
Englishman to the woolly-haired, bronzed African,
passing through the intermediate shades of coffee-
coloured, copper, and golden yellow. In the roads,
somewhat farther away, lie the three-masters and frig-
ates which every morning, to the beat of the drum,
hoist the ensigns of their respective nations. The mer-
chant vessels and steamers whose funnels belch forth
bi-coloured vapour, come nearer the quay on account
of their less tonnage, and form a foreground to this
great naval composition.

The appearance of Cadiz from the sea is charming.
When one sees it sparkling white between the azure of
the sea and the azure of the sky, it looks like a great
crown of silver filigree ; the cathedral dome, painted
yellow, resembles a golden tiara placed in the centre ;
the pots of flowers, the volutes and the turrets which

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

top the houses, vary the sky line infinitely. Byron has

admirably reproduced the appearance of Cadiz in one

line, —

" Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue sea."

Nevertheless, pleasant as Cadiz is, the thought that
one is shut up within the ramparts, and closed in by the
sea within its narrow bounds, inspires you with a
desire to leave it. One fine morning my companion
and I remembered that we had a letter of introduction
from one of our Granada friends to his father, a rich
wine-merchant at Xeres. The letter began in the
following terms : " Open your heart, your house, and
your cellar to the two gentlemen herewith." We
climbed on board a steamer, on the cabin wall of
which was stuck a poster, announcing for that even-
ing a bull-fight, with comic mterludes, at Puerto de
Santa Maria.

Xeres, like all small Andalusian towns, is white-
washed from top to toe, and possesses nothing remark-
able in the way of buildings save its bodegas or wine-
cellars, huge places with tiled roofs and long, white,
windowless walls. The person to whom we were
recommended was absent, but the letter was effective
and we were immediately taken to the cellars. Never

384

C ADIZ — GI BRx^L'l AR

did a more splendid sight strike a toper's eyes. We
walked between walls of barrels four and five rows
high. We had to taste of every kind, or at least, of
the principal kinds — and there were a great number
of principal kinds ; we went down the whole scale,
from the eighty-year-old Xeres, dark, thick, tasting like
muscat and having the strange colour of Beziers green
wine, down to dry sherry, the colour of pale straw,
with a flinty bouquet and rather like sauterne. Be-
tween these two extreme points there is a whole register
of intermediate wines of the colour of gold, burnt topaz,
or orange skin, and extremely varied in taste ; only,
they are all more or less mixed with alcohol, especially
those intended for the English market, for they would
not be considered strong enough without.

The steamer "Ocean" was lying in the roads, kept
back bv the bad weather for some days past. We
went on board with a feeling of deep satisfaction, for
in consequence of the fights which had occurred at
Valencia and the disturbances which had followed,
Cadiz was somewhat in a state of siege. The sea was
still rather rough, although the weather was splendid.
The air was so clear that we could distinctly perceive
the African coast. Cape Spartel, and the bay at the

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

end of which stands Tangier, which we regretted
being unable to visit. So that chain of mountains
like clouds, and differing from them only by its immo-
bility, was Africa, the land of wonders, of which the
Romans said, " ^uid mvi fert Africa ? " the oldest of
continents, the cradle of Oriental civilisation, the birth-
place of Islam, the black world where the shadows,
gone from the sky, are to be found on faces alone ; the
mysterious laboratory, where nature, in seeking to pro-
duce man, first transforms a monkey into a negro.
To see it and pass it by was a refinement of the torture
of Tantalus.

Opposite Tarifa, a town whose chalky walls rise
upon a steep hill behind an island of the same
name, Europe and Africa draw near each other as
if they would exchange a kiss of amity. The strait
is so narrow that the two continents are seen at
once. The prospect was marvellously magnificent.
On the left Europe, on the right Africa, with their
rocky coasts which distance clothed in tints of pale-
lilac and rose, like shades of changing silk ; before
us the boundless horizon ever widening ; above us
a turquoise sky ; beneath us a sapphire sea, so trans-
parent that we could see the hull of our vessel, as well

C ADIZ — Gl B R ALTAR

as the keels of the ships that passed near us, and which
seemed to be flying through air rather than floating
on water. We were bathed in brilliant light, and the
only sombre tint within sixty miles was that of the long
plume of dense smoke which we left behind us. A
steamer is unquestionably a Northern invention. Its
ever-burning fire, its boiler, its funnels which will at
last blacken heaven with their soot, harmonise won-
drously well with the moisture and vapours of the
North ; in the splendour of the South it is like a
stain. Nature was happy. Great seabirds, as white
as snow, skimmed the water; tunnies, dolphins, fishes
of all kinds, shining, gleaming, sparkling, leapt and
flashed amid the waves. Sail followed sail, white
and swelling like the full breasts of a nereid show-
ing above the waters. The shores were bathed in
fantastic colours ; folds, gullies, scarps caught the
sunbeams in a way that produced the most amazing
and unexpected effects, and offered an ever-changing
prospect. At about four o'clock we were in sight
of Gibraltar.

Gibraltar is absolutely amazing. One knows neither
where one is nor what one sees. Imagine a huge rock,
or rather a mountain, fifteen hundred feet high, which

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abruptly springs from the sea from ground so low and
flat that it is scarcely perceived. Nothing presages it ;
there is no apparent reason for it ; it forms part of
no chain. It is a monstrous monolith thrown from
heaven, or possibly a piece of a fractured planet which
fell there in the course of an astral battle, a fragment
of a broken world. Who placed it there ? God and
Eternity alone know. What adds still more to the
effect of this strange rock is its shape. It looks like
a huge granite sphinx of gigantic size, such as might
have been carved by a Titan sculptor, and by the
side of which the flat-nosed monsters of Karnak
and Giseh look like mice by an elephant. The out-
stretched paws form what is called Europa Point.
The head, somewhat flattened, is turned towards
Africa, which it seems to gaze upon with deep,
dreamy attention.

The town lies at its foot, almost imperceptible, lost
in the mass. The three-deckers at anchor in the bay
look like German toys, like miniature models of ships
such as are sold in seaports ; the barques Hke flies
drowning in milk ; even the fortifications do not show.
And yet it is dug out, mined, warrened in every direc-
tion ; it is full of cannons and howitzers and mortars ;

388

C A D I Z — G 1 B R A LI A R

it is replete with munitions of war j it is the very
luxury and coquetry of the impregnable; but it shows
to the eye merely as a few imperceptible lines mingling
with the wrinkles of the rock, a few holes through
which the guns show furtively their bronze muzzles.
In the Middle Ages Gibraltar would have bristled with
donjons, towers, and crenellated ramparts ; instead of
being at the foot, the fortress would have escaladed
the mountain and have been placed like an eyrie upon
the topmost crest. The modern batteries are on the
sea level of the strait, which is so narrow at this point
that they render the passage almost impossible. Gib-
raltar was called by the Arabs Giblaltah, that is,
the Mount of Entrance. Never was a name better
deserved. Its name in antiquity was Calpe. Abyla,
now the Monkey Mountain, is on the African side
close to Ceuta, a Spanish possession which is to the
Peninsula what Brest and Toulon are to France, and
where the worst of the galley slaves are sent. We
could perfectly discern the shape of its escarpments
and its crest, capped with clouds, in spite of the
serenity of the rest of the heavens.

Like Cadiz, Gibraltar, situated upon a peninsula at
the entrance to a bay, is connected with the mainland

389

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TRAVELS IN SPAIN

by a narrow congue of land called the Neutral Ground,
on which are the Custom-house lines. The first Span-
ish possession on that side is San Roque. Algeciras is
exactly opposite Gibraltar.

The appearance of the town produces the quaintest
effect. At one step you go more than five hundred
leagues, rather more than Jack the Giant Killer with
his famous boots. A moment since you were in
Andalusia; now you are in England.

We took a turn upon a beautiful promenade planted
with Northern trees and flowers and full of sentries and
guns, where you can see carriages and riders exactly as
in Hyde Park; all that is wanting is the statue of
Wellington as Achilles. Happily the English have
been unable to soil the sea or darken the heavens.
This promenade is outside the city, near Europa Point,
towards that side of the mountain inhabited bv mon-
keys. It is the only point on our continent where
these amiable quadrumana live and multiply in a wild
state. As the wind changes, they pass from one side
of the mountain to the other and thus act as barome-
ters. It is forbidden, under very severe penalties, to
kill them. I did not see any myself, but the tem-
perature of the place is hot enough for the most

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CADIZ — GIBRALTAR

warmth-loviiig monkeys to develop there without the
need of stoves and furnaces. Abyla, on the African
coast, possesses, if we are to believe its modern name,
a similar population.

The next day we left this artillery park and centre
of smuggling, and were sailing towards Malaga, which
we already knew, but which we enjoyed seeing again
with its tall, white, slender lighthouse, its harbour full
of ships, and its continuous bustle. Seen from the sea,
the cathedral appears larger than the city, and the ruins
of the old Arab fortifications produce a most romantic
effect upon the rocky slopes.

The next day we were at sea again, and as we had
lost some time, the captain resolved to pass by Almeria
and push on at once to Cartagena. We coasted Spain
closely enough never to lose sight of its shores. The
African coast, in consequence of the broadening of the
Mediterranean basin, had long since vanished from the
horizon. On the one hand, therefore, we beheld long
stretches of bluish cliff" with curious scarps and perpen-
dicular fissures, spotted here and there with white dots
that were villages, watchtowers, and custom-houses ; on
the other the open sea, sometimes shimmering and cov-
ered with lace-work by the current or the wind, some-

391

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times a dead and dull azure, or else transparent as
crystal, or again sparkling like a dancer's bodice, or an
opaque, oily gray like mercury or molten lead, — an in-
conceivable variety of tones and aspects which would
drive to despair painter and poet. A procession of red,
white, and cream-coloured sails, of vessels of all sizes
and of every flag, enlivened the scene and deprived it
of the melancholy of infinite solitude.

Cartagena, called Cartagena de Levante in order to
distinguish it from the African Cartagena, is at the foot
of a bay, a sort of rocky funnel in which vessels are
thoroughly sheltered from every wind. The sky line
is not very picturesque. The most distinctive features
impressed on our minds are two windmills standing
out against the light background of the sky.

The aspect of Cartagena is entirely different from
that of Malaga. As Malaga is bright, gay, animated,
so is Cartagena dismal within its girdle of bare, sterile
rocks, as dry as those Egyptian hills on the slopes
of which the Pharaohs dug their royal tombs. The
whitewash has disappeared, the walls have resumed
their sombre tint, the windows are grated with compli-
cated iron-work, and the houses, more repellent, have
that prison look which is characteristic of Castilian

392

CADIZ — GIBRALTAR

manors ; nevertheless, we are bound to say that we
saw at these well-grated windows only lovely faces and
angelic features.

From Cartagena we went to Alicante, which, in con-
sequence of a line in Victor Hugo's " Orientales," —

"Alicante mingles minarets and steeples, — "

I had imagined possessed an infinitely picturesque sky
line. Now Alicante, to-day at least, would find it
difficult to mingle steeples with minarets, a mingling
which I acknowledge to be very desirable and pictu-
resque ; first because it has no minarets, and second
because the only steeple which it possesses consists of
a very low and not very apparent tower. What does
mark Alicante is a huge rock which rises in the centre
of the town, which is topped by a fortress and flanked
by a watch-house hung in the boldest fashion over
the abyss. The City Hall, or to give it local colour,
the Casa Consistorial, is a charming building in the
best taste. The Alameda, flagged throughout with
stone, is shaded by two or three lines of trees which
have a fair number of leaves for Spanish trees the roots
of which are not sunk in a well. The houses rise
higher and have more of a European look.

393

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

From Alicante to Valencia, the shore cliffs con-
tinued to exhibit strange shapes and unexpected as-
pects. We were shown at the summit of a mountain
a square cut which seemed to be the work of man.
On the following morning we cast anchor before
Grao, the name given to the port and suburb of
Valencia, which is a mile and a half distant from the
sea. The swell was fairly high, and we reached the
landing-place pretty wet. There we took a tartana.
The name tartana is usually applied to a vessel ; the
Valencian tartana is a carriage body covered with oil-
cloth and placed on a couple of wheels without any
springs. This vehicle appeared to us effeminately lux-
urious by comparison with the galleys.

Valencia, as far as picturesqueness goes, does not
come up to the idea romances and chronicles give one
of it. It is a great, flat, scattered town, irregular in
plan and deprived of the advantages which the irregu-
larity of buildings gives to old towns built upon steep
ground. Valencia is situated in a plain called Huerta,
in the centre of gardens and fields in which constant
irrigation keeps up a verdure very rare in Spain. The
climate is so mild that palms and orange trees grow in
the open ground side bv side with Northern plants.

394

CADIZ — G I BR ALTAR

The Guadalquivir, spanned by five handsome stone
bridges and bordered by a superb promenade, sweeps
by the town almost under the ramparts. The numer-
ous drains made upon its waters for the sake of irriga-
tion make its five bridges merely luxurious ornaments
for three-fourths of the year. The Gate of the Cid,
through which one goes to the Guadalquivir Prome-
nade, is flanked by great and rather striking crenel-
lated towers.

The streets of Valencia are narrow, bordered by
houses of cheerless aspect, on some of which may be
made out some rough, mutilated coats of arms, frag-
ments of chipped sculptures, clawless chimeras, nose-
less women, armless knights. A Renaissance window,
lost in a hideous wall of recent masonry, draws from
afar the artist's eyes and makes him sigh with regret ;
but these few remains have to be sought for in dark
corners and in back yards ; they do not prevent Valen-
cia from having a very modern look. The cathedral,
of hybrid architecture, in spite of its apse with a
gallery of Romanesque arches, is in no wise interest-
ing to a traveller after the marvels of Burgos, Toledo,
and Seville. A few richly sculptured retables, a paint-
ing by Sebastian del Piombo, another by Spagnoletto, in

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his softer manner, when he tried to imitate Corregio,
are the only notable things. The other churches,
though enormous and rich, are built and decorated in
that strange style of rocaille ornamentation which we
have already described several times. On beholding
these various extravagances one can only regret that
so much talent and cleverness should have been so
absolutely wasted. The Lonja de Seda, the Exchange,
on the market-place is a charming Gothic monument ;
its great hall, with the vaulting supported by rows of
columns, the ribbing of which is twisted into spirals
of extreme lightness, has an elegance and a brightness
rarely seen in Gothic architecture, which is better
fitted generally to express melancholy than happiness.
It is in the Lonja that in Carnival time take place
entertainments and masked balls.

The real attraction of Valencia is its population, or,
to speak more accurately, that of the surrounding
Huerta. The Valencian peasants wear a strangely
characteristic costume, which cannot have changed
much since the Arab invasion, and which is but
slightly different from the peasant costume of African
Moors. It consists of a shirt, loose trousers of coarse
linen held by a red sash, a waistcoat of green or blue

CADIZ— GI BRALTAR

velvet, adorned with buttons made of silver coins ; the
legs are provided with a sort of knemlds^ or gaiters, of
white wool with a blue tape border, which leave the
instep and the foot bare. On their feet they wear
alpargatas, or sandals of plaited cords, the sole of which
is about an inch thick, and which are fastened on by
ribbons like the Greek cothurn. They usually have
their heads shaved in Oriental fashion and envelop them
in bandanas of brilliant colours. Over the bandana
is placed a small, low-crowned hat with turned-up
brim, adorned with velvet, tufts of silk, spangles, and
shining ornaments. A piece of striped stuff, called
capa de muestra^ adorned with rosettes of yellow ribbons
and thrown over the shoulder, completes this noble and
characteristic costume. Within the corners of his
capa, which he arranges in a thousand different ways,
the Valencian keeps his money, his bread, his water-
melon, and his navaja ; it serves him at once as a bag
and a mantle. Of course we are describing the full
costume, the dress worn on feast days. On ordinary
days, when working, the Valencian wears little but
a shirt and trousers. Then, with his huge black
whiskers, his sun-tanned face, his fierce look, his
bronzed legs and arms, he looks absolutely like a Bed-

397

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

ouin, if he unties his bandana and shows his close-
shaven blue skull. In spite of Spanish pretensions to
Catholicism, it is always difficult for me to believe that
these Valencians are not Moslems. It is probably
owing to their fierce look that Valencians have the
evil reputation which they enjoy in the other provinces
of Spain. I was told a score of times that in the
Valencian Huerta, if you wished to get rid of any one,
there was no difficulty in finding a peasant who would
do the job for five or six douros. That strikes me as
an absolute slander. I have often met in the country-
side most rascally-looking fellows who always bowed
to me very politely. One evening we had lost our
way, and we finally had to sleep in the open air, the
city gates being closed when we returned ; and yet
nothing happened to us, although it had long been
pitch-dark and Valencia and the neighbourhood were
in the throes of a revolution.

By a singular contrast, the women of these European
Kabyles are pale and fair, like the Venetians; they
have a sweet, sad smile and a tender, blue glance.
No greater contrast could be imagined. The black
demons of the paradise of the Huerta have white
angels to wife. Their lovely hair is kept up with a

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CADIZ — GIB R A LT A R

great comb, or traversed with long pins with silver
or glass heads. Formerly the Valencian women wore
a charming national costume which recalled the
Albanian dress; unfortunately, they have given it up
for the hideous Anglo-French costume.

We had been for some ten days in Valencia waiting
for another steamer, for the bad weather had upset
departures and interrupted connections. Our curi-
osity was sated, and we only cared to return to Paris
to see our relatives, our friends, our beloved boule-
vards ; I believe, Heaven forgive me ! that I secretly
wished to be present at a vaudeville. In a word,
civilised life, forgotten for six months, called us back,
imperiously. We wanted to read the newspapers,
to sleep in our own beds, and to indulge a thousand
Boeotian fancies. At last there came a steamer from
Gibraltar which took us to Port-Vendres, calling at
Barcelona, where we remained only a few hours.
Barcelona is like Marseilles, and Spanish characteristics
are scarcely visible. The buildings are dull and regu-
lar, and but for the full blue velvet trousers and the
great red caps of the Catalans, one might fancy
one's self in France. In spite of the Rambla planted
with trees, and its handsome straight streets, Barcelona

399

TRAVELS IN SPAIN

has a somewhat stiff look, as have all towns closely
confined within their fortifications. The cathedral
is very handsome, especially the interior, which is
sombre, mysterious, and almost terrifying. The organs
are of Gothic manufacture, and are enclosed in great
painted panels. A Saracen's head grimaces treacher-
ously under the pendentives which support it. Charm-
ing coronae, of the fifteenth century, traceried like
reliquaries, hang from the groining of the vault. On
leaving the church one enters a beautiful cloister of
the same period, dreamy and silent, the half-round
arches of which have the gray tones of old Northern
buildings.

The street De la Plateria dazzles the eye with its
shop windows brilliant with gems, and especially huge
earrings as large as bunches of grapes, of heavy,
massive richness, somewhat barbaric but quite majestic
in effect, which are purchased chiefly by well-to-do
peasant women.

The next day, at ten in the morning we were
entering the little bay at the foot of which spreads
Port-Vendres, — we were in France. Shall I acknowl-
edge it ? — as I stepped on my fatherland, tears of
regret, not of joy, filled my eyes. The golden towers,

400

CADIZ — GI BR ALTAR

the silvery peaks of the Sierra Nevada, the rose laurels
of the Generalife, the long, moist, velvet glances, the
blooming carnation lips, the small feet, the small
hands, — all these came back to my mind so vividly
that it seemed to me that France, u'here I was going
to meet my mother, was a land of exile into which I
was entering. My dream was ended.

401

I ■'~,["i h >r>\i

THEO
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